Song of the Hidden Heart
by Read It And Weeb
Summary: Trip finds a stowaway. Rated T for some language and suggestive content. Please rate and review, seeing as, unlike in the zoo, it is highly appreciated if you would feed the author.
1. Not With a Whimper but a Bang

The engine room was bustling with people, each of them rushing like ants to their individual stations.

The deep thrum of the warp reactor pulsed at a faster tempo than normal, as if to complement the quick pulses and hurrying feet of the crew manning it. At least, Trip liked to think so.

On a normal day, he often pictured Enterprise as a living thing, caring for them and shielding them like a benevolent mother. But today was not a normal day. The mother was baring its claws, its heart pumping.

Enterprise was under attack.

Commands came in sharp and fast from the bridge. Trip had to lean over crewmen's heads, inputting commands, plugging leaks, adjusting the plasma injectors, you name it. If a regular crewman was busy, then the chief engineer was positively everywhere at once.

An explosion rocked the ship, causing him to stumble. His shoulder collided with something, probably someone. It was a crewman, nondescript and brown-haired. "Sorry," he said, extending a hand to help her up.

She looked at him worriedly, almost like she was frightened. Quickly, she scrambled to her feet and took off in the opposite direction. Trip frowned, but he had bigger things to worry about than a squirrelly crewman.

He made his way over to the main plasma control panel, shouting, "Report!" over the noise. Another explosion sent them all swaying.

An ensign manning the panel shouted back, "Sir, we've taken hits to plasma control junctions Delta-One, Gamma-Three, and Epsilon-Seven! Something's gonna blow soon, I just know it."

The commander started to thread his way past the crowd, shouting back, "Keep your shirt on, ensign, we'll see what we can do." He crouched down to get at the central interface, and pulled off the panel. A cloud of fumes from melted shielding mixed with heated Xenon floated up, and he shielded his face and coughed at the burning sensation. He retracted his hand into his flight suit and waved the gas away.

Once it was sufficiently not-burning, he peered in, only to see that the entire assembly for section Epsilon was fused. With the urgency of a man who doesn't want part of his ship to explode, he whipped a coil decoupler out of one of the numerous pockets in his flight suit, and started unfusing the fibers, swearing under his breath.

The sickly green light cast shadows below the planes of his face, making him look unhealthy and drawn. The fact that he was running on gallons of adrenaline and coffee, and only a few minutes of sleep, didn't help.

He wiped the sweat off his brow, running a hand through his honey-shaded hair. The coils were almost unfused, but one stubborn little relay wasn't cooperating.

Trip gripped the decoupler between his teeth and pulled a pair of non-conductive pliers from his toolbox. The rubber tips of the pliers held the casing fast, but it wasn't budging. He gritted his teeth, muscles straining, and wrenched the relay casing off, falling back on his knees.

Immediately, he could tell he did something wrong. Sparks were showering from the relay, and the lights were flickering.

He looked across the room, slowly, as if half in awe, half in denial. "Oh, no, no no..."

The engine room plunged into darkness, for one still, silent moment.

Then, all of a sudden, everything was too bright and too hot and too loud.


	2. Blood and Smoke

As if in slow motion, the Epsilon Section main relay burst outward, tossing a few crewmen backwards like ragdolls.

All hell broke loose.

Everyone was screaming, running, trampling people underfoot. Most of them were running away, but some of them, Trip included, were running towards it.

Immediately, he pulled the shunt valve lever, redirecting the plasma far, far away from Epsilon Section.

His head throbbed like nothing else from the impact, and the fumes made his throat sting and his eyes stream, but he waded through the debris.

He spotted a cluster of bright flames, and smothered them in carbon dioxide vapour. Their dying light illuminated a figure lying on the floor, brown hair splayed like an aureole.

It was the woman he'd run into earlier, the frightened one.

Wasting no time, he took an ankle in each hand, and dragged her free of the rubble. In the emergency lights, he could see the disarray. A jagged hole was blown in the wall like a giant wound. Debris surrounded the area, broken beams and bits of conduit.

Two crewmen lay at its edge, prone. One had landed on his neck, head bent at a sickening angle. Trip swallowed bile, trying to tear his gaze away from the man's empty eyes.

The woman he'd dragged out of the debris groaned, snapping him back to reality.

He turned to the damage control team. "Morra! You contact the bridge, tell the captain what's happened. Valen, Sawyer, you cut off the remaining plasma flows! After that, get outta here! I don't want you getting asphyxiated."

They nodded, a silent "Aye, sir." The commander pulled an emergency procedures kit off the wall, and snapped together the emergency stretcher with shaking hands.

Hooking his arms under hers, he transferred her to the stretcher as gently as he could. The maglev assist motor took over to carry what he couldn't, but every gram of her mass felt like it was doubled in his leaden, numb limbs.

He found the turbolift, gasped out, "Sickbay," and fumbled for his communicator. "Tucker to Phlox. Doc, there was an accident in engineering. Don't bother going down there, it's gonna be fulla Xenon in five minutes. I followed the procedures, so I'm bringing the most critically injured one left living to sickbay." He didn't wait for the doctor to say so much as "Acknowledged," before saying, "Tucker out," and snapping shut his communicator.

He let his head rest on the hard turbolift walls before the door slid open. The stretcher coasted through the hallway and into sickbay.

Breathing hard, Trip helped Dr. Phlox transfer the patient from the stretcher to a bio-bed. He noticed cursorily that the smile had gone out of the good doctor's eyes, replaced by pure professional purpose. He tried to school his own expression, which he guessed was somewhere between nausea and abject panic.

"25 CCs of Cordrazine," requested Phlox, holding his hand out expectantly. Trip, despite his fatigue, remembered his emergency training and slapped a hypospray into the Denobulan's waiting hand.

The doctor frowned at it. "Commander, this is Anaproviline. I, er, recommend you get some bed rest, hm?"

Distantly, Trip nodded, his eyes half closed. He slurred, "Just about to do that m'self, doc..."

A wave of ear-ringing and eye-blurring static passed over him, and, dimly, he felt his knees buckling.

Then the world was mercifully dark and quiet.


	3. Stains

Trip sat bolt upright in bed, sweating and parched. He quickly recognized the place as his cabin, though it was completely dark.

"Computer, time?", he managed. "The time is 05:00 hours," remarked the computer in its neutrally bright way.

He then noticed that he was still in his soot-stained, greasy flight suit. He nearly fell over himself getting out of it.

Internally, he was glad that Phlox had cared not to undress him. Denobulans might have had more open standards when it came to privacy, but humans, especially not ones with a gentle southern upbringing, tended not to share them.

Nevertheless, he couldn't get out of his uniform fast enough. It was ripped, blackened, stained with grease, blood, and a good amount of sweat. He stepped into the shower, not caring that it was cold at first. The water felt good, washing away the events of the night before.

He stopped short, hands midway across his face. Some things would take a lot more than soap and water to get out.

The comm chimed. "Sickbay to Tucker. Could you come down here? We're, er, experiencing a little difficulty with our, er, patient."

He frowned, turned the water off. "How d'you mean, doc?"

"Just get here as soon as possible. You'll understand, hm?"

He pinched the bridge of his nose, partially out of fatigue, partially out of frustration. "Copy that, doc. Be there was soon as I can. Tucker out."

He stepped out of the shower, dried himself, and struggled into a clean uniform. You'd think that by 2151, they'd have figured out a way to get ready faster, but none was available.

On mornings like this, Trip considered rigging up a sonic dryer in his quarters, though it'd be hell to make it suitable for use on humans. He took a quick look in the mirror, fluffed his hair with a towel, and slipped out of his quarters in a hurry.

His heart was racing, and his mind was, too. Most likely, "our patient" referred to the woman he'd rescued, and this "little difficulty" didn't bode well for her.

He wasn't a medical man, but it didn't take a doctor to see that she was in bad condition.

 _If she dies_ , said a niggling little thought, _it'll be all your fault._ "Not true," He muttered out loud. "I did everythin' I could."

 _Everything? Like fixing that plasma relay?_ , it sing-songed.

He fell silent, glaring guiltily at the turbolift ceiling. There was nothing he could say to that, and he knew it. Someone had died already because of his incompetence, someone he knew, someone he talked with and joked with in the mess hall.

He couldn't recall ever seeing the other crewman, but he by no means wanted her to die.

The doors slid open, and he walked into sickbay to the strangest sight he'd seen in a good, long while.

The crewman, now dressed in a clean medical gown, appeared to be fighting with the doctor, attempting to claw and bite him like a feral animal.

He rushed towards them, grabbing the crewman's shoulder and trying to pull her away. "What in the hell's goin' on here?"

She was much stronger than she looked, and tried to sink her teeth into his hand. He pulled it away before she could bite him, and, problem-solving on his feet like a true engineer, pulled a hypospray full of tranquilizer from a nearby shelf.

It took a Herculean effort from both him and the doctor, but he managed to inject it full into her neck.

She struggled weakly for a few seconds, then went limp.

They both sank back, panting. "Doc. Mind telling me what in the hell's been goin' on here?"

The doctor got back on his feet, reaching for an immunization hypospray. "Rest assured, commander, you will get an explanation. For now, er, just help me get her back on the bio-bed. I have something you may want to see."


	4. The Chameleon

With the wild crewman immobilized and lying on a bio-bed, things seemed to settle down a bit.

The doctor hovered over her, gesturing the commander over. "Look at her."

He raised an eyebrow. "So? Looks perfectly normal to me."

The doctor smiled, always glad to make a new medical advance. "Ah, but that's the trick of it. What if I told you, commander, that in the hours she has been awake, she's begun to develop Denobulan ridges."

He turned her head with a gloved hand, pointing out little, raised ridges on her chin, forehead, and cheekbones, barely noticeable from a different angle.

Trip frowned, an uneasiness stirring in him.

The doctor continued, seeming happy in spite of any danger. "Additionally, her physiology is changing. She's developing a third porous lung, a feature I share, hm."

Trip blinked slowly, feeling a little out of his depth. "So what you're sayin' here is that our crewman's turnin' into a Denobulan?"

"She's not a crewman, commander." The doctor powered on his desk terminal, showing a facial features analysis of the woman. "I had the computer cross-reference her features to those of the crew, and she is, indeed, not a member."

"Then who are they?" Trip pointed at the crew profile images flanking hers. They looked similar, but not too much, like a distant family resemblance.

The doctor pressed a button on the terminal, and the profiles expanded to fit the screen. "It's curious, hm. That woman lying right there shares exact facial features with ten different crew members, myself included."

"So you're sayin' she's some kinda chameleon?"

The doctor bustled past him. "In a manner of speaking, yes, I suppose."

Trip brushed a shock of hair off her forehead. It was uncanny, now that he looked at her up close. She looked familiar, but somehow seemed like the most nondescript person in the world.

He looked back at the doctor. "So what's this got to do with me?"

"Oh, not much, really. But I called for you out of what I saw as necessity. She was waking up, and becoming increasingly violent. Seemed to think I'd hurt her, hm. I surmised that since she was at least partially conscious when you saved her life, she'd respond better to you."

Trip looked back at the woman. "Can you wake her up?"

Phlox rummaged around in a drawer for a hypospray, fished out two, and tossed one to the commander. He injected one into her neck. "The one in your hand is another sedative. I recommend you keep it at the ready, in case our patient should repeat her previous behavior."

Trip looked down at the hypospray, a wry expression on his face. "Whatever happened to optimism?"

The Denobulan smiled his wide-blue-eyes smile, comforting and uncanny. "Oh, optimism hasn't gone anywhere. It's just been temporarily replaced by reasonable caution."

Suddenly, the chameleon's eyes fluttered open.


	5. What Trust Begins

With a start, the chameleon sat up, causing both men to recoil slightly. Her eyes swept around the room, eventually fixing on Trip.

"You."

Her voice was low, both in volume and pitch, and seemed a little accusatory.

He put a hand to his chest. "What'd I do?"

She made a move to try to sit up, but Phlox rushed over, steadying her. She glared at him, brandishing her nails like claws. He backed away.

"If memory serves... you saved my life."

Reluctant to accept such a high complement, probably associated with some kind of debt in her culture, Trip waffled a little. "Well... in a way, I guess I mighta helped."

She rolled her eyes a bit. "Eyes don't deceive. If you hadn't gotten me out of there, I would be dead."

"Well, if I recall, and I do, you weren't in much of a state to be seein' clearly. And from where I was standin', your life was saved by our doctor," The doctor smiled ear-to-ear and waved cheerily. Trip continued, "Dr. Phlox, who you should probably trust a lot more."

The chameleon moved so she was sitting upright. "Suit yourself. Praise tends to go where it wants to. As for trust," She glared pointedly at Phlox, "I'll let you treat my wounds. I don't have a death wish, and you don't seem to wish me dead. But if you were even thinking of experimenting on me, I'll give you a bite mark you won't soon forget."

The doctor raised his eyebrows, and in his usual manner, swallowed the information with a spoonful of sugar. "Oh, don't worry. I won't lay a finger out of place. Might get bitten off, hm?"

Trip massaged the bridge of his nose, pressing delicately into the thumbprint smudges under his eyes. "If that's all, doc, can I go? Me and the boys in engineering have got a lot to do."

The doctor turned to his patient. "I'm absolutely fine with it, commander, but I think you should be asking our guest here that."

The chameleon looked worried, a little afraid, even. "Stay. Please."

He looked almost pleadingly at the doors. "You know, that big explosion that almost killed you is gonna take a lot to repair, and I'm the man to do it."

She looked guilty, but steeled her position. "I'm sorry. But I don't want to be left alone with him." She looked at Phlox suspiciously.

Trip sighed. "Fine. Just... try not to be any trouble, alright?"

"I won't."

Trip pulled up a chair next to the chameleon's bio-bed. "So how'd you get to be so twitchy around doctors?"

She pulled her knees up against her chest, picking at the hem of the flimsy gown. "Long story."

He looked at her stubbornly. "I got time."

"I don't like to talk."

He pulled out a padd, and started thumbing through it. "Then we ain't gonna talk, I guess."

They sat in silence for a moment, interrupted by Dr. Phlox coming over with a hypospray in hand.

The chameleon stared suspiciously at it. "What's in that?"

Smiling, he responded with, "A simple painkiller. Should help, hm?"

She narrowed her eyes. "Don't like painkillers. If you want to heal the burns, heal the burns."

He shrugged. "Suit yourself."

Trip was the first to break the silence. "So you got a name?"

She returned to picking at her gown. "No."

"Pleasure to meet you, No."

She shot him a withering glare.

"Ok, ok. Thought the joke mighta helped, but, you know, I was wrong." He put a hand on his chest. "My name's Charles. Charles Tucker the Third. Everyone just calls me Trip, though." He stuck out a hand, expectant of a handshake. "Where I come from, people greet each other by shaking hands."

Reluctantly, the chameleon took his hand, a little too firmly, and gave it a few awkward shakes before releasing it. "Where do you come from?"

"Planet Earth. Third planet in the Sol system." Distantly, he muttered, "Just a little blue marble."

The chameleon sank back stiffly onto the bed, clutching her right side. "Never heard of the place."

He leaned a little closer. "You sure you don't want those painkillers?"

She shook her head. "I'm sure." She stared at him, somewhat annoyed, and he realized he was hovering a little too close. "Why don't you tell me about this Earth of yours?"

"Thought you said you didn't like talking."

She looked at him sharply. "I said I didn't like to talk. There's a difference."

He settled back in his chair. "Well, lucky for you, I've been feelin' a bit homesick lately. Let's see. Earth. Well, for one, it's one of the most beautiful places in the galaxy. I've set foot on more'n a dozen alien worlds, and ain't none of them been so pretty. We got all kinds of nature there, plenty of ocean, plenty of forest, plenty of everything. You should see the place! Hell, I remember that expedition I took, down in the Amazon Forest Preserve..."

He looked over at the bed, confirming the suspicion of his peripheral vision that the chameleon had fallen asleep.


	6. Lessons in Optimism

Trip walked into sickbay, still clutching a padd from his shift in engineering. The senior staff briefing that day had been... interesting, to say the least. Everyone seemed to have a different opinion on this whole "chameleon" business.

The captain had eventually put a stop to the bickering by marching down to sickbay and asking her directly about her intentions. It seemed, for now, that all she wanted was shelter. However, just to be safe, they had posted two armed officers on a rotating shift just inside the sickbay threshold.

The commander briefly exchanged glances with the guard. They seemed fairly relaxed, a good sign. The chameleon was still asleep, though he suspected she had been sedated at least once.

Her long, dark hair was starting to morph into something curly and short, brown and blonde. The Denobulan ridges on her face had grown darker and more prominent.

Her body was becoming more stout and mannish, but, bizarrely enough, the closer Trip looked, the more he could see his own structured jaw and pert nose in the mix. The effect was almost disorienting.

"Well, I'll be damned."

He looked up to see Dr. Phlox smiling at him, obviously relishing his disbelief.

"She really is a chameleon, huh?"

"Indeed she is. Once she fell asleep, I had an easier time studying her physiology. It's really quite fascinating, hm?"

He raised an eyebrow. "I thought she told you no experiments."

The doctor bustled past him, taking a petri dish off the counter. "On the contrary, commander. She told me not to experiment on her. What she did give me permission to do was treat her burns. In order to that, I had to take several scans, and gather a few skin cells."

Trip shrugged, the universal sign of concession. "Sounds reasonable. Just... be careful, alright? I don't wanna come in here and find her tryin' to tear you to pieces again."

"Oh, have a little optimism, commander," beamed the doctor. "Besides, she's under guard. All in all, she seems to be more afraid of us than we are of her." He walked over to the chameleon's bed, carrying a little tin of gel. He took a bit of the bright blue goop on a swab, and made a move to rub some on her leg.

Just as it touched the blistered, pink flesh, she caught ahold of his arm with reflex-made strength and quickness.

"Awake at last! It's good to see the plasma hasn't dulled your reflexes, hm?"

She jerked her head towards the tin. "What were you putting on my leg?"

The doctor made a move to show her the label. "It's Sereline gel, an anti-scarring agent."

"Don't lie." The chameleon looked at Trip. "Do you believe him?"

He bit his lip. Of course he believed the doctor. Why wouldn't he? "'Course I believe him. He's not gonna hurt you."

The chameleon released Phlox's arm, and slowly laid back down. "Go ahead." He began swabbing the gel onto the raw skin.

The chameleon kept trying to relax, but her eyes kept darting around, and she clenched and unclenched her hands at her sides.

Trip looked at her with a slightly concerned expression. "You alright?"

She gave an ironic half-smile. "See for yourself."

The doctor interjected. "Medically speaking, the answer would be no." He pointed to neutral readings graphs on the large screen, next to her bio-scans. "Her pain receptors have been active since she's been awake. Any contact to the affected area has made the readings spike significantly."

The engineer looked back at the chameleon, part disbelief, part sympathy, and part a strange kind of anger. "So you mean to tell me you've been in pain since this mornin'?"

Phlox interceded again, saying, "Oh, longer than that."

The chameleon shot him a look. "It's better than being pumped full of painkillers."

The doctor straightened up, and screwed the lid back on the tin of gel. "Suit yourself. In any case, I'm going to get something to eat. I'll leave you two alone, hm?"

Her eyes tracked him out of the room.

As soon as the doors slid shut, she lay back, eyes sliding gently shut. For a good thirty seconds, the only sound in the room was the high and low-band noises from the lights and machinery, and the distant, muffled thrum of the warp reactor.

Trip settled back into the chair, which hadn't been moved.

She opened one eye. "Aren't you going to get something to eat, too?"

He pulled out a padd, freshly updated with reports from engineering. "Nope. Already ate."

She closed her eyes again. "You meditatin'?"

She kept her eyes closed. "No."

"What're you doin', then?"

"Trying not to imitate the ceiling."

He gave a soft snort of laughter. "You're kiddin'."

She opened her eyes. "Do I look like I'm kidding?"

"Guess you don't."

He looked up at the ceiling. It was a plain, pale grey. "You can really do that?"

"Unfortunately, yes." Her expression was tight and thin-lipped.

"So you're tellin' me that if you stared long enough at the wall, you'd turn into it?"

The chameleon sat up. "Can we talk about something else?"

"Sure can. What d'you wanna talk about?"

"Don't know. I'm bored."

Trip made a move to get up. "You hungry?"

She nodded. "If you're going to get me some food, could you bring me some?"

"I was gonna do that anyway. Anything you'd like?", he asked.

She shook her head. "Whatever there is, I'll eat."

He smiled incredulously. "Ever heard of Gagh?"

"Doesn't sound pleasant," she said, "but whatever it is, I've probably had worse."

He shook his head, laughing. "Don't worry. I'll get you somethin' good. You alright here by yourself?" He jerked his head towards the exit. "I mean, besides the guard."

She cracked a sliver of a smile. "I'll try not to burn the place down."


	7. A Midnight Snack

Trip walked back into sickbay, blinking sleep out of his eyes.

The late hour was starting to get to him, but he had promised the chameleon some food, and he was there to deliver. He balanced a plate of pecan pie in each hand, a lucky score on a hard day. The guard gave him a once-over, but let him pass.

The chameleon was sitting with her legs over the edge of the bed. She was slightly different than when he'd left, barely recognizable as a "she" by now. She looked like an amalgam of the doctor's features and his own, a jarring mix of portly and jovial, clean-swept and boyish.

She looked up expectantly. "Oh, good, there you are. My stomach was starting to digest its own lining."

His eyes widened. "You ain't serious, right?"

"Of course not," she said.

He sat down, and set both plates down on the bed between them. Before he could even hand her a fork, she descended on the pastry like a starved animal, picking off bits with her fingers.

"Whoah, slow down," he chuckled. "You'll get a stomachache like that." She ignored him. "At least you could bother to not use your hands," he said, holding a shiny metal fork out to her.

She looked up slowly, licked the filling off her fingers, and held the utensil in her fist. "I find it hard to believe that your people eat with these things. It seems like a very impractical way, especially when the food's this good."

Trip made a move to take the chameleon's hand, but as soon as his fingers brushed hers, she recoiled. "Oh... Can I?"

She relaxed her hand. "Sorry. Force of habit. Go ahead."

He started curling her fingers around the fork's handle. "See, the reason you thought it was so inconvenient..." He took his hand away, leaving her gripping it like any native Earth citizen. "Is because you were doing it wrong."

She went back to eating her slice of pie. "Thanks. I just love learning pointless alien customs."

He started on his slice, not nearly so enthusiastically as her. "You bein' sarcastic?" She didn't respond. "No, seriously. I can't tell."

She gave him a wry grin and rolled her eyes a little. "Actually, I wasn't entirely joking. From what little I've seen, I really enjoy learning alien myths and legends. I suppose it... gives me an escape."

Trip noticed that her attention had gradually been drifting away from him for the past fifteen-odd seconds. He thought she looked far off, maybe in one of the myths she liked so much.

His lips pressed together in wry amusement. "So I take it you were kiddin' about the, uh, pointless alien customs?" She blinked her eyes, snapping her gaze back to him.

"What? Oh, uh, yes. I hate having my own culture's niceties shoved on me, let alone someone else's."

"Well. Sounds like your mama wasn't big on manners."

The chameleon snorted derisively. "I'll say she wasn't. The one thing I know about her," she muttered, "is that she sold me. For drinking money. She was an addict."

Trip's eyes softened a little. "Don't know what to tell you. I would say 'sorry', but somethin' tells me it's more'n a bit played out."

She laughed, a low sound that he could tell, like her voice, was underused. "Ah, this man right here, he gets it. Just what all those shopkeepers and busybody old ladies couldn't understand." She fixed her eyes on an invisible audience, somewhere between the wall and Trip. "Stop saying sorry," she said as if it were the most obvious thing in the universe, gesturing emphatically. "Not only does it not fix things, it gets really, really annoying."

He cleared both their plates off the bed, seeing as they had both moved on, not to mention completely demolished the pie. "Tell me about it. I mean, I probably ain't had the same kind of things happen to me, but that doesn't mean I ain't never been annoyed."

His point of focus drifted somewhere nearer to the ceiling, but the chameleon had her eyes fixed on him, her knees pulled up against her chest. He rambled on. "I remember one day, when I was in elementary school... my dog had died over the weekend. I couldn't stop crying. Hell, I was probably as depressed as a third-grader could be. But what really pissed me off was how people just wouldn't stop sayin' sorry."

He looked back at her, bright grey eyes tinged with nostalgia and sympathy. "Anyway. I'm ramblin' again. You probably wanna hear about somethin' more exciting than my childhood."

"Actually," she mused, "it wouldn't be too bad. Better your childhood than mine."

He yawned subtly, trying not to squinch up his face. "If you wouldn't mind too much, I'd like to get some shut-eye. It's late, and, with any luck, I can get some repairs done tomorrow." He quite deliberately gave her a look, though it was more plaintive than anything else.

She rolled her eyes, an amused sort of gesture. "You don't have to guilt me into anything. Go get some sleep, you look like hell."

He cracked an indignant smile. "Says you! You look mostly like me, anyways. I wouldn't go insulting myself, now would I?"

She made a shooing motion at him, smiling. "Ugh. Just go."

He stepped out into the doorway, turning down the lights on his way out. "Y'know, we're really gonna have to find you a name sometime."

From inside the darkened infirmary, he heard, "Trip. Go to bed."

Over his shoulder, he called out, "Goodnight!" He walked away, shaking his head and smiling. It looked almost the same as the smile the chameleon wore in that same moment, topped with a strong Cupid's bow, and filled with pearly teeth and giddiness.


	8. The Bonds We Build

Trip walked into sickbay the next morning like the shiny black soles of his boots had maglev assists in them.

Which is to say, he had a spring in his step. "Mornin', doc, mornin', chameleon."

Dr. Phlox greeted him with an equally sunny smile, pausing from whatever he had been working on. "Good morning, commander. I see you're in a good mood, hm?" "I'll say. First good night's sleep I've had in weeks."

The chameleon waved at him from her bed. "In case you're wondering, I'm doing well, too."

"Actually, I was wonderin', thanks. How's the burns?"

"Doing well, actually. Dr. Phlox says I'll be able to wear more clothing than this damn gown by tomorrow, which is good." She looked down ruefully at the maligned garment. "I hate this thing." T

rip looked at the doctor, then back to the chameleon. "Seems like you two are gettin' along pretty nice."

Phlox bustled past him, a phial and pipette in his hands. "Certainly better, although she's still quite reluctant to let me study her. She certainly warmed up to me quite a bit when she realized I wasn't going to hurt her, hm?"

She threw her hands up conciliatorily. "I'm not an idiot. I'm not going to be an ass to the man who's healing me, if that's all he's doing."

Trip craned his neck, trying to get a closer look at the padd in her hand. "What's that?"

"I've got the entire ship's database on file, but this is a collection of Earth myths and legends. They're really quite strange."

He sat down on edge the bed. "Tales of Brer Rabbit," he read aloud.

"You've heard them?"

He nodded, eyes clouding over a little with the kind of deep childhood nostalgia that could only bring a smile to his face. "Sure have. Me and my family'd go out campin' in the Everglades preserve when I was little. We'd sit around the campfire, moonlight streamin' through the trees, roastin' marshmallows, and my grandaddy would tell us stories. Stories his family told him, and their family told them before that, and so on."

She got an oddly wistful look about her. "Sounds nice."

His expression fell, turned sympathetic. "Somethin' wrong?"

"What? No," she said. "Nothing's wrong. I just wish... I just wish I could've had someone to tell me stories. I know, it's hokey, and more than a bit pointless..."

He shook his head. "Ain't pointless at all. There's still time to tell more stories."

The doctor tapped Trip on the shoulder, breaking him away. He spun around. "Doc! You nearly gave me a heart attack!"

"We wouldn't want that, commander. Ahem, anyway, I need both you and the chameleon's advice on something."

The commander folded his hands, looking attentive. "How's that?"

"Well, er, by tomorrow, she's going to be well enough to be moved without major discomfort. I'd prefer to move her out of sickbay. I've been having to hide her when regular patients come through. Easier than giving everyone with a scrape or bruise a full explanation, hm?"

"So where'd you wanna move her?"

The doctor cued up a map of the ship on the main display. "I've spoken with the captain, and it turns out that the only available bunks are in the officers' quarters."

Trip regarded the doctor from the corner of his eye. "So what you're sayin' is you want her to stay with me."

The Denobulan's expression stayed unchanged. "That was, er, among what I was going to propose, yes." When the room remained silent, he decided to further his point, just to be on the safe side. "Commander, she seems to trust you the most out of anyone on this ship. I can't say I fault her, you did, after all, save her life, hm?"

The chameleon piped up. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't talk about me like that while I'm right here."

Phlox remained unfazed. "I apologize. Old habits die hard, hm? Erm, your decision, commander?"

Trip slid off the bed, boots hitting the floor with a rubbery clack. "I'll think about it." He looked meaningfully at the chameleon. "I'm sure you will, too." She nodded. He turned back to the doctor. "If you don't mind, doc, I'll be on duty in a few minutes."

He smiled that unflappable smile of his. "I wouldn't stop you, commander."


	9. Deloa

Trip sat in the mess hall, bolting down lunch and catching up on status reports. He barely tasted the food, nor did he really pay any attention to what it was.

He was being kept awfully busy by the major repairs. Busy in a bad way, or, in other words, stressed out. The plasma coolant kept leaking, no matter what he and his team did. Normally, he loved his work, but lately, he found he could use a vacation.

He looked up from the padds spread on the table like playing cards, attention caught by little chime that came from his watch. It was 18:00 hours. Time for his shift to end.

He put away his plate, stuck the padds in his myriad pockets, and got in the turbolift. "Sickbay," he announced to the computer. Dutifully, it obeyed, taking him to the hallway directly outside. It was the familiar routine of a few days, though it felt like longer that the chameleon had been aboard.

He walked into the bright room, feeling bright, too, like the leaden weight in him had been beamed away. He found the chameleon sitting cross-legged on her bed, reading from her padd. "More myths?"

She looked up, slightly startled, but barely let it show. "Been looking through the human biological database. That, and trying to avoid turning into the ceiling."

That got a quiet chuckle out of him. "You decided anything?"

"Yes, actually. I've found myself a name."

His eyes went bright, excited. "That right?"

She smiled, looking like a weight had been lifted off her, too. "Deloa."

He contemplated it, rolling the word around on his tongue. "Deloa. Where'd you get that?"

She handed him the padd, with a story cued up on it. "The Song of the Hidden Heart," he read aloud from the title. "Is Deloa a character from here, or somethin'?"

She nodded. "Deloa was a shapeshifter in Andorian mythology. Even though she was mortal enemies with the hero, who, I have to say, was kind of an ass anyway, I really connected with her."

"Why's that?," asked Trip.

Her face grew more solemn. "She was just like I am. She changed shape so many times, she stopped looking. Stopped caring. She... forgot what she looked like in the beginning."

She delivered the words with such casual resignment, as if relating a mildly unpleasant truth of life. Trip paused to regard her in a new light. He had never given much thought to shapeshifters, except for thinking that, in some distant corner of the galaxy, they might exist. Looking at her now, she bore no resemblance to the brown-haired female crewman he'd first seen her as. In fact, she didn't look female at all. Her voice was the only thing that gave that away, low as it was.

It occurred to him that it was entirely possible that the real Deloa was long forgotten.

"I... had no idea. If there's-" S

he held up a hand to silence him. "You know how I feel about 'sorry'. If there's something you can do, do it, but I doubt you can. I've lived with this since I can remember. It's not a tragedy to me."

He cast his gaze down, his big grey eyes mournful. "I feel like I should say somethin', at least."

Her expression perked up a bit. "Tell me a story."

"You serious?"

"Tell me a story," she insisted.

He sat down on the bed next to her. "You know, we got stuff to talk about, for real. Where's Phlox?"

"Out. Doesn't matter. I'm bored, tell me a story." She sat on the bed, waiting patiently, eyes politely anticipatory.

He caved. "Fine. What'd you wanna hear about?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. Myths and legends, your childhood, hell, you could tell about your day, for all I care. Just talk."

He settled into a more comfortable position. "Alright. Uh... give me a second."

"One," she counted.

"Very funny," he shot back.

She settled back, laying down on the bed, while he sat on the edge.

"So, uh, me and the boys had a lot of repairs to do today. Me and ensign Jusofe managed to fix the faulty plasma shunt that caused the big explosion. 'Member that?"

She opened one eye. "Didn't hit my head that hard."

"Anyway," he continued, "Tomorrow, we're gonna re-connect the Epsilon conduits to the main system, put everything back in place. We'll take the makeshift work-arounds offline, and redirect the plasma through the main conduits. We'll finally be able to go to warp 5 again." He looked back at her. "Sounds nice, doesn't it?"

She gave him a sleepy little smile. "Sure."

He jostled her gently with one arm. "Hey, don't go sleepin' on me, now. We still gotta ask the doc about movin' you to my quarters. Besides, it's only about 18:00. That's dinnertime for us normal people, by the way."

She rolled her eyes. "Well, excuse me for having an odd sleep schedule. It's not like there's much else to do in this bland little room." In a sudden burst of attentiveness, she looked up at him. In that moment, he thought her eyes looked very alien, the irises oddly pale. "By the way, Trip, if you were wondering about the whole quarters thing, it's a yes."

He felt an odd, warm swell of offhand happiness in the back of his throat. "So you'll stay with me."

"Sure I will. You're the closest friend I've got here. The only other people I've met on Enterprise are the doctor and the captain. I trust the doctor well enough, but he gets on my nerves. The captain seemed patronizing, and more than a little angry."

Trip smiled. "Sounds like captain Archer, alright. He's a great captain, but he don't take too kindly to stowaways."

"And you do?"

He waffled for a moment, not quite sure what to say. "Well... you're different."

She looked over at the wall. "Am I."

"Sure you are. I saved your life, remember?"

She smiled, sarcastically. "Someday, will you let me live that down?"

He shook his head. "Nope." He looked down at his hands, folded in his lap. "The truth is, Del... Don't mind if I call you Del, do you?"

"I call you Trip, don't I?"

"Fair point. Anyway, Del... I, uh..."

The door to sickbay opened, and the doctor came in, humming a little tune. "Ah, commander," he said brightly. "There you are. I've already made preparations for the chameleon to be moved to your quarters."

She piped up. "I'll move myself, thank you."

"Of course you will," he said, unflappable. He took a few little tins from a table, and started piling them into Trip's hands.

"What's all this, doc?"

"An anti-scarring agent. She'll have to apply it twice every day, for two weeks."

He shot a help-me type glance at Del, his arms overloaded with several dozen tins of gel. She locked gazes with him, and snickered. Phlox bustled off, presumably to go attend to one of his pets. "If that's all, commander, then I recommend you and miss Deloa go get some dinner, hm?"

Trip tapped him on the shoulder. "Actually, there is somethin' else." He looked back at Del. "Tell him, Del."

She creased her brow. "What?"

He turned back to the doctor. "Listen, doc, I need you to do somethin' for her. It's probably gonna be hard, but I need you to try."

Phlox stood attentively. "Oh?"

"You see, Del's been all shapeshiftin' since she can remember. Doc, she can't even remember her own face. If there's somethin' you can do..."

The doctor was already off, preparing his microscope and genetic analysis kit. "I believe I can manage. Deactivating the morphogenic sequences should prove a challenge, but I'm confident in my abilities. Optimism, commander!"

Deloa was, for the moment, too dumbstruck to make fun of him. "Wait... you're telling me you can actually do that?"

The doctor continued fiddling with slides and pipettes. "It's all a matter of finding the right nucleotide sequences. Unfortunately for you, it will involve a great deal more... poking and prodding, hm?"

She paused for a beat, then steeled her resolve. "I'll do it."

Trip looked back at her. "Del, I don't want you to feel-"

She cut him off. "No. I'll do it." She turned to face the doctor, standing barefooted on the cool sickbay floor. "I've been alive for thirty-two years, and every single day that I can remember, I've wanted this. I've tried everything I can, and if this is what's going to turn me back into the 'me' I never knew, do it. I don't care if it hurts."

Phlox smiled an ear-to-ear, fully sincere smile. "Now that's the resolve I love to see. I think you'll be very heartened to know that it won't hurt, at least not the analysis. I can't guarantee how your body will react, pain-wise, to the treatment, but I doubt it will be too bad."

Deloa broke into a smile. "When do we start?"

"First thing in the morning. You need to get settled into your new quarters."

She shrugged. "I won't argue with that." She turned back to Trip, and, all of a sudden, enveloped him in a hug.

"Whoa, whoa," he chuckled, patting her gently on the back. Because of the doctor's stature, she was decidedly shorter than him. He whispered down to her, "Thirty-two?"

She looked back up at him, half-amused, half-annoyed. "Something wrong?"

He shrugged. "Nah. Just got the impression you were younger, that's all."

She pulled away, smiling a cheeky grin. "Must be my youthful glow."

A warm smile spread across his face. "Must be."

A gurgle broke the ensuing silence. "What was that about dinner?", asked Del.

He patted her on the back. "You know, I heard chef made a real fancy, gourmet pizza."

She creased her brow. "Pizza?"

They stepped out into the doorway, together. "Just you wait."


	10. Reticence

Del felt the second-most self-conscious she had ever been in her life, walking down the halls of Enterprise. She was fully aware of everything, every breath of cold air, every panel seam under her feet, and all the stares from passing crewmen.

Trip, with a steadfast arm thrown over her shoulder, whispered, "Just ignore 'em."

She hissed back, "I can't. I look like you and Phlox's love-child in a hospital gown."

He broke off, laughing. "Well, that's one way of puttin' it."

"You said it was dinnertime for everyone?"

"More or less."

She rolled her eyes, a good measure of genuine anxiety showing through the sarcastic bravado. "Great. Let's just parade into the mess hall, at peak dinner hours. Great plan."

He stopped walking. "Del..."

She threw her hands up, an edge of hysteria creeping into her voice. "No, it's alright. Let's find out, let's be explorers, huh? Because I have literally no idea what people are going to think of me. Am I your clone? Your kid from another planet? Your boyfriend?"

He put a hand on her shoulder, looking her square in the eye. "Del," he said, a lot more firmly this time. "This ain't mandatory. If you wanna go to our quarters and find your way around, you can go do that. I'll bring some food by as soon as I can, and we can eat there."

She looked down, pursing her lips. "You know what? This is a stupid thing to put my foot down on, but I'm coming with you. Crewmen be damned."

He patted her on the back. "Attagirl."

She winced a little. "Just... lend me some clothes when we get to your quarters, would you? This damn thing is really drafty."

He gave her a semi-serious look of sympathy, as they walked into the mess hall. "I'd be obliged to."

The mess hall was mostly full, populated mostly by lower-ranking crewmen, and a few senior officers. A slight hush fell over the room, as most heads were turned towards Trip and Del.

Trip employed a trick he had learned in elementary school: if they stare at you, you stare back. Crude, but effective. He fixed each curious, confused, and outright disgusted stare with his own, irritated silver-grey one. One by one, most of them turned away, and resumed their own conversations.

He guided Del over to the serving case. "Food's in there. I'll get us some drinks." Delicately, she opened the frosted-glass door, and picked out a plate for each of them. A particularly appealing slice of margherita pizza sat on the plates.

She met up with Trip, and whispered, "What do we do now?"

He whispered back, "Just follow me."

He made his way to a four-person table that was being half-occupied by Malcolm and Hoshi. They both looked up, somewhat unpleasantly startled, and doing a pretty bad job of concealing it. "Mind if we sit here?", asked Trip.

"Not at all," responded Malcolm, adjusting his seat to make room for them.

Del set down their plates, and sat down cautiously, glaring at Trip. "Who's your friend?", asked Hoshi.

"Her name's Deloa," he said around a mouthful of pizza. "Del, Lieutenant Reed, Ensign Sato."

Del stuck her hand out awkwardly, not really knowing if this particular greeting was appropriate for group use. They both reached to reciprocate the handshake at the same time, and, after a nonverbal exchange akin to a pedestrian and a car before the same driveway, shook her hand one at a time.

It was Malcolm who tried to strike up a conversation, in his trademark to-the-point-if-insensitive way. "So you're our stowaway, eh?"

"Stowaway's a bit of a strong term," said Trip, a little defensive.

Del waved her free hand (as in the hand not currently holding a slice of pizza) dismissively. "He's right, you know. I did, in the most literal sense, 'stow away' on Enterprise."

"How'd you get on board?", asked Hoshi, genuinely curious.

She wiggled her eyebrows, trying to breathe life into the dying conversation with good old-fashioned humor. "I'm a shapeshifter. I have my ways."

"Did your 'ways' involve any of my security personnel, by chance?", asked Malcolm, effectively stabbing the conversation in the chest several times.

"N-no, I just stole a uniform from the laundry chute and stuck with the crowd..."

He rested his chin on his hand, thought process higher than the proverbial kite. "Fascinating... and tell me, where did you board Enterprise from?"

She shot Trip a "Help Me" sort of look.

"So what d'you think of the sweet tea, Del?", he asked, trying to distract the armory officer.

She scrunched her face up slightly, curious but not quite disgusted. "Horrible. I can't stop drinking it..."

"Never mind that," cut in Malcolm. "How, exactly, did you get on Enterprise?"

Hoshi gave him a look. "Lay off, Malcolm. She obviously doesn't want to answer."

"It's a matter of ship's security," he protested. "I just need to know."

Trip tapped Del on the shoulder, mouthing, "Let's go." He stood up. "It was nice talkin', but, uh, I've gotta get Del settled into her new quarters."

Trying to avoid tripping over her chair, Del sidled out of the way. "Nice to meet you," she blurted out.

Once they were out into the empty hallway, she let out a sigh of relief. "I like crowds where I don't stand out," she muttered.

"I can tell," Trip observed.


	11. Places We Called Home

Trip's quarters were dark when they arrived, leaving them both silhouetted in the doorway. The lights cut on as Trip walked in, like he had done every day for the past seven-odd months.

He walked into the "living room", and spread his arms. "Home sweet home."

He turned to Del. "What d'you think?"

She smiled. "Oh, I don't know... the paintjob's a bit dull." She went over to the wall, pretending to inspect it. "What would you think of a bright chartreuse?"

He snorted with laughter. "I don't know, I always thought royal blue'd be real nice. Chartreuse's awful clashy."

She looked around, poking at the storage bins. "Joking aside, this place is great!"

He looked at her incredulously. "It's just a ship's cabin, Del. Ain't a five-star hotel."

She shrugged. "Better than any place I've stayed. Not that there's been very many of those."

"You can't keep doin' that, you know," he said.

She raised an eyebrow. "Doing what?"

"That. Bringin' up your life, y'know, before all this, and then gettin' all uncomfortable when we wanna know more."

She sat down on the small sofa in the corner. "It bothers you, doesn't it?"

"Which part? 'Cause most of it does."

She steepled her fingers in front of her face. "That much is obvious. But what really irks you- and everyone else- is how I got on this ship. You all think your security is so advanced, so tight. It just boils your piss to know that I just stole a uniform and walked on here."

He chuckled. "You should've seen Malcolm at the briefing. The man was just about ready to have a conniption. You must've done a little more than just walked onto Enterprise, though."

"You could say that." She cast her eyes up towards the ceiling. "I boarded... from the Enyar orbital platform."

Even Trip recognized the weight of the admission. "Why're you tellin' me this?"

She cast a heavy gaze at him. "Do you want me to tell you or not?"

He held up his hands. "By all means."

"Anyway. You know, I told your captain that I just wanted shelter on here. He asked me who was after me, and I said I couldn't say. But it was more than that. I couldn't say if I wanted to. I didn't know what they called themselves. But they're after me. I can only hope we're far away enough so that they won't find us. I slipped through their fingers years ago. Anyway, I... I'd been living on the orbital platform for several months by that time. Traders came through, cargo ships with fallow holds. No one I'd want to go with. But then..." She seemed farther away. "But then Enterprise came."

Trip piped up, voice low in the semi-darkness. "I remember. We stopped by for spare parts and shore leave."

"Yeah," she continued, "I waited until the people on leave started coming back. While I was waiting, I hung around groups of humans. I started absorbing their features."

"So you came back with the crowd, lookin' just like one of 'em?", he finished.

"Exactly."

For a moment, the only sounds in the room were their breathing, and the low thrum of the engines. "Trip," said Del, "can I ask you something?"

"Fire away."

"When you first saw me, that day in engineering, how would you say I looked?"

He pursed his lips. "I don't know. I guess you just looked real... average. No offense."

She smiled. "None taken. In fact, that's exactly what my ability does most of the time. In the presence of more than one person, I'm at the exact middle between them. I'm the average."

"And no one asks about the average," added Trip.

She nodded. "It's a blessing and a curse. Well, mostly a curse." She yawned. "Ugh. I don't suppose there's a bed in here."

He turned up the lights slightly. "There's two." He gestured towards the bunk beds, built into the grey wall. "Bottom one's mine. Top one ain't been used."

She got up from the sofa. "So what are we going to do about clothes? I'm not going to wear this thing any longer than I have to."

He made his way over to the storage bins. "Amen to that. Hope you don't mind wearin' some of my clothes. Quartermaster ain't available at the moment."

She shook her head. "I'd wear pretty much anything at this point that isn't a hospital gown."

He rummaged around in the leftmost bin. "How about... this?" He held up a pair of loose grey sweatpants and a sweatshirt to match it.

She shrugged, plucking it out of his hands. "Whatever works." Del seemed to arrive at a hitch in her plans. "Is... there anywhere I can change?"

He gestured towards the bathroom door. "Bathroom's right there." She slipped through, closed the door, and came out a few minutes later, covered in grey synthesized cotton. "Well. Running water and warm clothes. Do miracles never cease?"

He chuckled. "If you want a shower, you can take one."

She shook her head. "No thanks. Right now, what I need is sleep, in a proper bed."

Trip watched closely as she made her way up the deceptively flimsy ladder. "Careful."

She looked down at him. "I can handle a ladder." She settled down in the crisply made bed, rumpling the sheets.

"Everythin' alright?"

She smiled. "Not quite. You forgot the mint on my pillow."

A grin ran across his face. "I'll be sure to tell the manager."

"This is great, though," she said. "It feels like I'm in a cupboard up here. All warm and dark."

He stepped towards the bathroom. "I'll take that as a good thing." Once inside, he shut the door. The lights automatically flickered on. Trip started to undo the zipper of his jumpsuit. Normally, like most people, he slept au naturel, but it wouldn't do in the presence of a lady.

He traded out his flight suit and blues for some loose-fitting loungewear he'd bought years ago for whatever reason. It was, indeed, ugly, but it hardly mattered. It was ridiculously soft on the inside.

He slipped back out into the cabin, and into his bunk. Just as he let his eyes shut, he heard Del's voice, mumbling sleepily. "Trip?"

"Mm?"

"What's your planet like?"

He frowned, at least mentally. "Earth's nice. Thought I told you about it already. Why'd you ask?"

"No reason," was her response.

"'Night, Del," he muttered.

"Goodnight."


	12. What Lies Beyond is Still Unsaid

Del woke up that morning by almost hitting her head on the ceiling. Certainly not the best of ways to start one's day.

She peered over the rail of her bunk. Trip was already awake, drying his hair in the bathroom doorway. He looked up. "Rise and shine."

She managed to slither out of the bunk, and down the ladder. "Ugh. Good morning," she said, fumbling with the rungs.

He continued about his duties, checking the computer terminal for status updates. "You sound so enthusiastic."

She rubbed her eyes. "I'm not a morning person."

"Now that's the attitude of someone who could use some coffee."

She shrugged. "I'll trust your judgement there, since I have no idea what that is."

"Tell you what," he said, hunched over his computer, "I'll finish up here, and we can go down to the mess hall and get breakfast."

She mentally balked at the prospect of going back to the mess hall. "Actually, I'm not a breakfast person, either."

He shrugged. "Suit yourself."

"So when do you start your shift?", she asked.

"05:30," he said, powering off his terminal. "You gonna go back to sickbay?"

She managed a smile. "Of course I am. Even if I wasn't interested in the, uh, reversion, Phlox would never let me hear the end of it if I didn't come back for follow-ups."

Trip braced against the edge of the bunk as he laced up his boots. He grinned, and shook his head. "Doc doesn't let anyone hear the end of much anything, now that you mention it."

Del retreated inside the bathroom, and splashed water on her face. It was still mostly the same as it had been the previous night, albeit with a smidge more Trip. The cool water washed away the tendrils of sleep still clinging to her.

She stepped back out into the main living area, straightening her sweatshirt. "Ready when you are." She looked to her right, at Trip. "Well, don't you look smart."

He grinned, and tugged at his flight suit. "You think so?" It was true. He did cut a dashing figure, in a naval sort of way, with his hair wetted back and his eyes bright.

"I do think so," she said. They both stepped into the hallway at about the same time.

He looked down at the floor, half-concerned, half-amused. "You sure you don't mind bein' barefoot?"

She shrugged. "I've gone barefoot in much less hospitable places. Trust me. I'll be fine."

"If you say so."

They both continued to the nearest turbolift junction, where they both boarded, the only two people on it. "Sickbay." "Engineering."

The turbolift stopped outside sickbay first, where Del stepped off. She paused, looking back at Trip.

She made as if to lean towards him, body held akimbo. "Trip?"

He raised his eyebrows, anticipatorily.

"Never mind," she said, backing up.

Then, she turned back into the hallway, and continued on towards sickbay. She came to the double doors, which slid open, and she stepped through.

The doctor bustled over to her, wearing his usual smile. "Hello, Deloa. Er, you don't mind if I call you Del as well, do you?"

She shook her head. "I don't see why not."

"As you wish," he said, gathering a few tools from a tray. "I suppose you're here to be, er, evaluated for the resequencing treatment, hm?"

She nodded.

"You do realize," said Phlox slowly, "that this will involve a great deal of patience, and, er, how did you put it, 'poking and prodding.' Neither of which, might I add, you are fond of, hm."

She looked at him sideways. "Doctor, are you trying to get me to change my mind?"

"Er, no," he said, seemingly caught off guard.

She lay down on the bio-bed, closing her eyes. "Then just do it."

He continued to stand there, looking indecisive.

Del's eyes snapped open. "What is it now?", she asked irritably.

"I, er, hate to be the bearer of bad news," began Phlox, looking somewhat like a concerned owl. "But you're going to have to wear a medical gown again."

Her half-growl, half passive-aggressive sigh could be heard a deck away.


	13. Abeyance (Deconstruction Part 1)

Trip walked into sickbay thumbing absently through the contents of a padd. He looked up, and saw no sign of Del. He approached the doctor, who was feeding his Ozmotic eel, and tapped him on the shoulder.

The Denobulan seemed a little startled, but buried it with a wide smile. "Ah, commander! You couldn't have come at a more opportune time."

Trip, ignoring that, asked, "Where's Del?"

"In the imaging chamber," said Phlox, strolling over to the monitor. "She should be out in... my, how time flies, one minute, fifteen seconds."

The engineer leaned closer to the monitor. "So what're you doin' to her in there?"

"We're using a minor dose of EM radiation to activate the genetic suppressant I've injected her with."

"So it's all done already?", asked Trip, a tad bit disappointed.

"Not at all," rebutted the doctor, shaking his head. "After the suppressant is activated, she'll have to wait for five hours while the drug takes effect."

"Sounds... slow," remarked Trip, for lack of anything else particularly polite to say. The chamber doors began to open.

"Here she is, commander," said Phlox.

The bed slid out on its track, of course, with Del lying on it. She picked up a hand and waved at Trip. "Hey," she said, trying to sit up.

"Hey yourself," he said by way of response. "So how's sickbay been treatin' you?"

She rolled her eyes. "Ugh. It's unbelievably boring. I had to just lay there and try not to turn into the scanning interface for thirty minutes."

He shook his head. "If you think thirty minutes is bad-"

"I know, I know," she finished for him. "Try five hours."

The doctor cut in, offering a hand to help Del up. "It, er, might do for you to spend those five hours in one of the other beds here. The imaging chamber bed can be a bit uncomfortable, hm?"

She stood up, stretching a little. "Sure."

"I'd have thought you'd be a little tired of lyin' down," Trip remarked idly.

Del continued her impromptu aerobics session. "And you'd be right. Why do you think I'm doing this?"

He shrugged. "Point taken." She continued in relative silence, before stopping, and suddenly clapping a hand to her forehead.

He immediately was there, hovering unsurely by her. "What's wrong? Del?"

She hissed in pain. "Headache."

He eased her down her to sit back on one of the beds. "Must be one hell of a headache to get little miss no-painkillers down."

She opened one eye and narrowed it. "I'll live."

He sat down in his usual chair next to her bed. A wry little grin lit on his face as he thought briefly about how much of a routine this sort of thing had become. Not that he minded.

"So how are your repairs coming?", she asked.

"They're done," he said with a smile of irrepressible engineer's pride. "Me and the boys got the Epsilon grid back online yesterday."

Del smirked a little. "Guess you're happy about that."

He looked around for any sign of the doctor, only to find none. Trip figured he was probably in back, puttering around with his menagerie. For a rather portly man, he had quite the way of making himself scarce.

Del sighed loudly, turning Trip's attention back to her. "It's so boring around here," she groused.

"Don't you have anything better to do?"

Without noticeable hesitation, he returned with a short "Nope."

She rolled her eyes a little. "I find that hard to believe. Isn't there something you'd rather do with your free time at night than sit around in sickbay, waiting for me to..." She gestured loosely constructed shapes in the air. "I don't know, transform?"

"Well," he began, "there really ain't much to do around here. I'm off for the night, and movie night's tomorrow."

"Isn't there someone you'd rather spend time with than me, though?", she persisted. "I'm not good company in the first place, but this headache isn't really encouraging me to talk."

"Well, who else would I hang around?", he asked.

"I don't know. Friends? Girlfriend? Someone?"

Trip pursed his lips. "Well, most of my friends are collapsed on their beds after a long day of work."

"And I take it there's no girlfriend in the picture?"

"Well, that's a bit of a personal question," he said with a slight frown.

Del ran a hand through her hair. "Well, then don't answer it."

"Well, it's al-" He looked over at Del, a frown of concern coming over his face. "Del?"

But she wasn't listening. She was busy looking with an expression of mild panic at her hand, or rather the clumps of brown hair caught between her fingers.


	14. Dreamweaver (Deconstruction Part 2)

Del stared a moment, running the reasons and outcomes over in her head. "Well," she said finally, "It looks like the real me is bald."

Trip stood up, making his way towards the back of the sickbay. "I should get the doc."

"No need," interjected Phlox, popping out from behind the partition. "I've been monitoring her vitals remotely."

He made her way over to Deloa's bed, and ran a scanner over her blithely glaring face. "You know, this isn't really necessary. You could just monitor me remotely, like you said, instead of... fussing over me like this."

"It's better to be safe," he cautioned. "Now, I'll leave you alone for a little, if you want me to,"

"And I do," she interrupted.

"But," he continued, "I'll come back and check on you every hour, hm?"

She lay back on the bed, sighing. "Fine."

He gave her a small pat and retreated behind the partition.

Trip came back and sat by her. "So how're you feelin'?"

She let her eyes slide shut. "No better, no worse. Well, a little worse."

"You sure you don't want anythin' for the pain?"

"I've told you before," she muttered, "no."

"Maybe a little distraction?"

Her face brightened a little. "That'd be nice, thanks."

He retrieved her padd from a table in the corner. "Anythin' you in the mood for?"

"Well," she said, weighing the options, "mind reading me a story?"

"Alright. Anythin' in particular you want?"

Del thought for a moment. "How about... Song of the Hidden Heart? Chapter fifteen, that's my favorite."

"Ain't that the story you got your name from?", wondered Trip.

She nodded weakly.

"You sure you're okay?", he asked, brow crinkling in concern.

She opened her eyes and looked heavily at him. "Read."

He chuckled a little, tapping at the padd. "And she's back, folks!"

He focused his attention on the text. "Song of the Hidden Heart, Chapter the Fifteenth: Ke'Laran and the Wraith."

He looked over at Del, who had an arm flung up over her eyes. "Sounds like an adventure, alright."

"Read," she grunted.

Shaking his head, he began with the story.

"Ke'Laran, guardian of Elaidor, stood watch over the bridge to his citadel night and day. He sought to let travelers through and keep the ice bandits out. But one day, there came a mysterious figure, cloaked in shadow.

'Halt!', cried Ke'Laran, brandishing his staff. "What is your name?", he asked.

The shadow said, simply, 'I am nobody.'

The guardian wriggled his antennae to and fro in vexation. 'You cannot be nobody,' he proclaimed. "I see you, I speak to you!'

'And yet,' said the shadow, 'I am nobody.'

'Then, what does nobody look like?', he asked. 'Remove your hood.'

'Would you let me pass if I looked like an innocent child?', asked the shadow. And then it removed its hood, revealing the face of a sweet, lilac-skinned child.

'No,' said Ke'Laran, shaking his head. 'for that is not your true face.'

'And what,' said the shadow, 'would you say if I looked like a beautiful woman?' And lo, Ke'Laran, gasped, for before his eyes was a woman with flaxen hair and sapphire skin.

'I will not let you past,' he said, steeling his resolve, 'for this cannot be your true face.'

And the shadow tossed its head back and laughed.

When it faced him again, he was nose-to-nose with his own face.

'Now, do you see?', said the shadow. 'I have no true face. You see in me only what face I wish, unless I should wish to show my own.'

And the wraith Deloa, for that was her name, walked over the bridge and to the citadel."

Trip stopped reading, looking over at Del. She was fast asleep.

He grinned, and whispered over at her, "You gotta stop makin' a habit of this."

A wave of drowsiness overtook him. He looked at the time index on the padd. 23:46 hours. He yawned deeply.

He felt much too tired to go all the way back to his quarters, and, now that he had been sitting there for more or less an hour, the chair felt quite warm and comfortable.

And before he knew it, he was dozing off, too.


	15. Reconstruction

Trip awoke to the screaming of an alarm. It burrowed its way into his dream, for a bewildering moment, and then his eyes snapped open.

He looked around for a moment, vision whipping across the sickbay, until it finally alighted on Del's bed. He sprang out of his chair, and went to stand by the doctor, who was desperately ministering to her.

"What the hell's goin' on here?", he demanded.

"Her body's undergoing rapid genetic reversion!", explained Phlox, leaning over to get a hypospray. "Her genetic sequences are mutating at an exponential rate!"

Trip looked down at her, brow furrowed in concern. She was almost unrecognizable now, entirely bald, with sickly pale skin.

Suddenly, her eyes flew open. They were unusually large, with pale blue irises, and stared, unfocused, at the wall. She sucked in several ragged-edged breaths, and made an incoherent grab for Trip's hand.

He caught her hand, and enveloped it in both of his. Worry knitted his brow, and squeezed at his throat. "Ok," he reassured, "It's gonna be alright."

"Stop talking to yourself," she whispered. "I _am_ alright." She laughed weakly, and he did, too.

The doctor sighed, setting some of his tools down.

"Talk to me, doc," insisted the commander.

"At this point in the treatment," he explained, "the only thing we can do is let it take its course."

The engineer's eyebrows shot up. "You kiddin'? There's nothin' we can do to make this any easier?"

The doctor shook his head. "Not without risking complications, or anesthetizing her."

Del squeezed his hand like a vise. "Trip. Leave well enough alone."

He frowned more deeply, but said nothing. Both of them were mule-stubborn, but Phlox was not going to violate his patient's wishes anytime soon, or at all.

Suddenly, another alarm picked up. Del's breathing picked up speed.

Suddenly, her head snapped back, and a scream ripped from her throat. Her limbs lolled around, moving slowly, and then snapping around rapidly.

Trip swallowed bile. Memories of that fateful night in engineering, of that crewman's broken body flooded back in.

Grotesquely, Deloa's limbs made sickening cracking noises, and expanded like growing tree branches. Her features elongated, her skin turned unnaturally pale, and her limbs grew slender.

And then, much more abruptly than it had begun, her fit subsided. She lay there on the bed, taking in great, ragged breaths.

Despite having been under less physical duress, Trip leaned back, relieved.

He was struck by just how different she looked. She was much taller, and quite thin. Her neck was longer, and her head looked like it had been seized by the back and stretched. Her skin was titanium-oxide-white, with blue tinges, and her eyes were wide and pale blue, unchanged from when they'd been transformed previously.

It was, he decided, not a bad change at all. He was sure she agreed, because, slowly, a smile came over her face.

She looked marvelingly at her hands, turning them over. She looked over at Trip and the doctor. "Can I-"

Phlox was already handy with a mirror. "Of course."

She used one hand to help her sit up, using the other to hold the mirror. She looked over at Trip, an oh-my-god-get-a-load-of-this kind of look.

He cocked his eyebrows at her, as if to say, "You think so?"

Like a newborn gazelle getting to its feet, Deloa struggled to hers, despite the doctor attempting to get her to lay back down. She took a few shaky steps on her new legs, before stumbling over thin air.

Fortunately, before she could fall very far, Trip steadied her.

"Thanks," she breathed.

"How're you feelin'?", he asked.

She let out a short bark of incredulous laughter. "Feeling? I feel incredible!" She took a few more steps forwards, before stumbling again.

Chuckling, he threaded an arm under her shoulders. "Careful! It ain't every day you get this tall."

She laughed. "I am really tall, aren't I?"

He cast his eyes up to where her head was perched, coming to about four inches above his. "I'll say. You're a right Amazon, Del."

She smirked again. They both had the inkling she would waste no opportunity to rub his nose in this.

She sighed. "Oh, I don't believe this."

He shrugged. "I don't know, happened, didn't it?"

She looked at him heavily. "Come on. You know what I meant."

And, before she could stop herself, earlier's beatific smile reclaimed her face, and she wrapped her new, true arms around him.


	16. Romeo and Juliet

Kitted out in a spare grey jumpsuit and a nervous smile, Deloa was ready for movie night. She paced around the cabin, waiting as Trip got ready.

"You still haven't told me what this movie is about," she said, picking at her nails.

"Well, I figured since you had the entire cultural database at your fingertips, Romeo and Juliet would've rang a couple bells."

She shook her head.

"Well," he said, "I guess there's always time to learn."

As they stepped out into the corridor, Del rebutted, "Well, that may be, but you still haven't told me anything about it."

He gave a short laugh. "You seem awful insistent to get spoilers. And think about it, Del. Pretty much everyone knows this story. I bet you're gonna be the first person in human history to go into this clean."

She rolled her eyes. "I can't have been the first."

"One of the first."

"Well," she said, with an air of finality, "if you insist on enforcing the sanctity of 'spoilers', then that's that."

They quickly arrived at the impromptu theater that was the mess hall. A few people had arrived, but Trip wasn't of the opinion that many more were going to show up.

The 2031 retelling of the ancient tale, faithful to the original play to the letter, wasn't exactly a subject of great interest to the non-film buffs in the crew.

They passed by the serving trays, and Del reached out to snag a bowl of caramel corn. Trip wasn't much of a popcorn person, but, as it turned out, the chameleon had quite the sweet tooth.

"Y'see, Del, this movie was adapted from an play," he explained as they took their seats.

She looked at him sideways. "I thought you had a strict no-spoilers policy."

"This ain't a spoiler," he rationalized, "it's just a little background."

She shrugged noncommittally. "So much for consistency."

"So like I was sayin'," he continued, "it's adapted from a play that was written hundreds of years ago. And, uh, it follows the script pretty close, so the language might be a little confusin'."

Del popped a piece of caramel corn in her mouth. "I think I can handle it."

He shrugged. "Suit yourself."

The lights dimmed, and the screen came to life. It wasn't nearly as romantic as a real projector, but the movie theater was quickly going the way of the dinosaur back on Earth. Del spent most of the movie completely transfixed, only looking away for caramel corn.

Trip had seen this particular iteration of Shakespeare's legendary tragedy twice, but the ending always got to him. That sort of thing seemed to happen a lot.

As a crescendo of beautiful, mournful music poured out of the speakers, he couldn't help but tear up a little. Well, a lot.

Well, so much so that Del broke out of her movie-induced trance to ask incredulously, "Are you crying?"

He swiped away a tear. "Just got somethin' in my eye, that's all."

She giggled. "You _are_ crying! You sap!", she ribbed him.

Someone in the row behind then shushed them angrily.

"Del," he said, firmly, "if you wanna leave and go talk, that's alright."

The smile ran away from her face. "No, I'm sorry. The movie's almost over, anyway."

They continued watching the conclusion in silence. The night was winding down, and her bucket of caramel corn only had one piece left in it. Just as she was about to pluck it out, a hand swooped in and stole it.

Grinning, she glared sarcastically at Trip, who grinned back, around a piece of caramel corn.


	17. Danaam

Trip knew something was wrong the instant those so-called "researchers" came on the viewscreen. Their ship nosed up to Enterprise like a pit viper, and, as per standard protocol, their hails had been answered.

"I'm Captain Jonathan Archer of the starship Enterprise," greeted the captain.

"Yes, we know," said the man on their bridge. He was tall and pale, like most of his species, but his eyes had black irises, an uncommon feature.

"I am Kaira Danaam of the Enyar Research Commission. Captain, we were hoping you could return a piece of our property to us."

The captain frowned. He spread his hands out, concedingly, benevolently. "I wasn't aware of us coming into possession of any Kei'Enyar scientific equipment. We were at one of your repair stations, could it have been one of the spare parts?"

Danaam smiled a dangerous smile. "Aheh... no. You are in possession of one of our, shall we say, biological prototypes."

Archer put on his best false-concerned face. It didn't take a rocket scientist to guess what, or rather who, Danaam was after, but he was going to try his damnedest to pretend. "I'm afraid we didn't take any experimental organisms aboard at your orbital platform. Maybe it stowed away? Our sensors aren't calibrated for something that small."

Danaam shook his head. "This organism is larger, and far more dangerous than you realize."

The captain raised an eyebrow, feigning surprise. "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean," clarified the Kei'Enyar, his tone gradually rising into an outburst, "that there is an experimental humanoid who has escaped onto your ship. She is capable of imitating the appearance anyone and anything and is violent when provoked. Captain, she is extremely dangerous!"

Archer looked back at Ensign Sato, mouthing, "End transmission."

He looked around at the crew. "Suggestions?"

Lieutenant Reed was the one to eventually speak up. "Sir, it's quite obvious he's referring to the stowaway we took aboard."

"I realize that. But do you have any suggestions on what to do with her?"

"I was getting to that," continued Malcolm. "Sir, I propose we give them what they want."

Trip stood up indignantly from his station. "Now wait just a damn minute!"

The captain looked at him tiredly. "Trip..."

Oblivious, or just not caring, the commander continued. "That 'prototype' is a living, breathing, sentient being! Now, she's never told me who the hell that man is, but I doubt she'd be too keen on goin' back with him."

Archer added some steel into his gaze. "Trip. Let Malcolm finish."

Still glaring, the engineer sat back down.

The tactical officer cleared his throat. "Er, as I was saying, sir, I recommend we give the Kei'Enyar what they want. I've scanned their ship, and their weapons would pose quite a threat to Enterprise."

After a pause, he doubled down by saying, "Captain, we can't risk the safety of the ship, not to mention future diplomatic relations with these people because of some stowaway!"

The captain held up a hand. "You've made your point, Lieutenant."

He turned back towards the viewscreen. Danaam's pale-blue face popped back up. "Have you made any progress in locating the prototype, Captain?"

Archer looked at the floor, then back up again. "Yes. She's, uh, in our custody." He paced pensively around the bridge. "I'll send a shuttlepod over."

Danaam bowed his head. "Thank you, Captain, but I'll be transporting over to collect her myself."

"Suit yourself. Uh, one more thing," said Archer. "If it's not too much trouble, could you put in a good word for us with your government?"

"Certainly," said the scientist. "Is that all?"

The captain nodded. "It is. Archer out."

The viewscreen cut back to a feed of the starfield, darkening the bridge.

Captain Archer slumped back in his chair, taking a deep sigh.


	18. Directive

Trip had, for a long time, known that life wasn't fair. However, knowing something and confronting it when it rears its ugly head are two entirely different things.

He banged his head on his console. It hurt, but not nearly as much as the growing lump in his throat. He took a deep breath and stood up, straightening his flight suit.

"Captain," he said, "can I have a minute? Out in the hallway? Y'know, to like, compose myself?"

The loose threads of a plan started to gather together in his mind. The way he saw it, it would be great if they were with him on this, but he could manage if they weren't.

The captain waved a hand dismissively. "Take all the time you'd like, commander."

Trip bowed his head to hide a small smile, and tried not to look like he was in too much of a hurry to get out the bridge doors.

* * *

Once he was out in the corridor, he started jogging towards the shuttle bay.

Mentally, he ran the odds. Most likely, Del was already en route to the Kei'Enyar ship, but he could still check. He went over to a small panel mounted on the wall, and checked internal sensors.

He breathed a sigh of relief. She was still on board. Not only that, but whomever the Kei'Enyar had sent as their envoy was right outside of sickbay. So, not too far away for plan A to work.

After a fair bit of running and a few tense seconds spent in a turbolift, though, his face fell.

He saw Del, lying limp, being dragged by the shoulders by a Kei'Enyar in a long, white lab coat.

Right before they beamed away, the scientist turned around and looked Trip square in the eye.

It was Danaam.

* * *

Back on the bridge, things were silent, save for the beeping and the chirping and the low-band thrum of the warp reactor.

"Sir," said Subcommander T'Pol, "commander Tucker has been absent for over ten minutes."

The captain said nothing.

"That is far too long to simply be 'composing himself'," she persisted.

"Give him time, Subcommander," he said. "You know as well as I do how attached he was to her."

"You do realize what the logical conclusion is in this situation?"

"She was someone who meant a lot to him," said the captain, completely ignoring T'Pol.

After a pause, Lieutenant Reed piped up. "Sir, permission to, er, compose myself, as well?"

"Permission granted."

Just as Malcolm was stepping out the doors, Archer turned around to face him.

"Lieutenant?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Tell Trip... good luck."

The armory officer nodded curtly, and was gone in a whoosh of the doors.

* * *

Trip pressed his hands to the window of the launch bay control room. He banged a fist on the glass, which just ricocheted off with a dull thud.

Why was it that when he needed just one shuttlepod, both of them were either in use or under repair?

He checked the logs. Dammit. One was out on a research expedition, and there was no chance of getting the other one so much as out of the launch bay.

Gathering as much resolve as he could, he ran down to the transporter pad.

* * *

Deloa was dead-set on causing as much annoyance as possible. She pounded furiously on the door to her cell, gouged her long nails along the wall, and yelled, yelled until she was hoarse.

She had already tried searching for hidden panels and wires, some way to get out or cause systemwide chaos, but these people knew her too well.

So she screamed, and gouged, and pounded.

It probably wouldn't do anything, but it made her feel better.

Eventually, she heard muttering outside, and quieted down. "Ugh," said someone, presumably a guard, "This one's more trouble than she's worth."

"Agreed," said someone else. "All this shouting."

Del perked up for a moment. Maybe something was going to come of it, after all.

"I'm going to sedate her. You go tell Danaam," said one of the voices.

Del's face fell. Her not-plan, it seemed, had backfired.

The room started to flood with a gas, cloyingly sweet. It burned the back of her throat with its intensity.

She wondered, vaguely, if Trip, or anyone else from Enterprise was going to interfere. They seemed like the kind of people who did that.

Before everything went dark, she decided that they probably weren't. And it wasn't right, but it was alright.

* * *

This was definitely a last-ditch effort on Trip's part. Despite their past performance, he still didn't trust the transporters any more than he would a hooded snake oil salesman.

But nothing gave him more pause than seeing Malcolm Reed standing on the transporter pad, arms crossed.

"Step aside, Lieutenant," he warned.

To his surprise, the normally obstinate armory officer did step aside. Not only that, but he took the control panel, as if he were going to operate it.

Not wanting to, nor having time to question Providence, Trip stepped onto the transporter pad. "Better hurry, Lieutenant, we're almost out of range."

"I can see that," muttered Reed. After a second, he took the throttles in his hand and looked up. "Commander, I just wanted to say..." He seemed to choke on his words for a moment.

"Spit it out, Lieutenant."

"I just wanted to say 'good luck'. Captain's orders," finished Malcolm. He straightened up into a proper naval salute.

Trip smiled, and returned the salute, even as bubbles of white light consumed his vision.


	19. Reign of Rescue

It was from the hold of the K.S.S. Niarel that Trip Tucker orchestrated his reign of terror.

The main systems were easy to tap into, although the systems regarding data storage, weapons, and, he suspected, their precious cargo, were heavily encrypted. It all seemed to indicate that this was an outmoded research scow, heavily modified in the weapons department.

He shook his head. Malcolm had been right, back on the bridge, for not wanting to directly confront them. Their weapons were definitely a threat.

On the other hand, there wasn't much people thought could be done with the more mundane systems. Those people were sorely wrong.

Trip was everywhere at once in the cramped hold, poking, tweaking, welding, cutting. He was thinking on his feet, writing and rewriting his plan as things unfolded. He was tacking into the wind, and he knew it.

He was engineering.

* * *

Del was cold, unbearably cold.

It was nothing she hadn't experienced before, after all, Enyar had harsh winters, but it never got any better. She sat there, back to the brick wall, wrapping her limbs around herself.

It was bright, too, so bright. It seemed as if all the buildings and all the icy-topped snow in the city was conspiring to reflect light into her eyes.

Shielding her eyes, she looked skyward. She was alone.

Innately, she knew there was no way out of this. The only thing to do was wait.

* * *

It all began with a single security guard. Trip emerged from the hold, and was spotted immediately. But he was prepared.

The guard managed to utter an indignant "Hey!", as the maintenance isolation bulkheads cut off her route. And it wasn't just her.

Trip's entire planned route had been isolated with bulkhead doors and firewalls, that is, except the area and systems surrounding the research bay. Those had been more secure.

Regardless, he pressed on, through the corridors, up the secured turbolift, and up to the research bay.

As expected, a gang of armed guards filed up to confront him, phasers drawn.

And then Trip did something unexpected.

With his head lowered, he let slip a small, dark smile.

With a small, unobtrusive beep, beep, beep, the corridor went silent. The guards stopped, puzzled. What was that sound? Was it a bomb?

And then they found out. A massive, low-band _wom_ rattled their ribcages, and then the entire section of flooring behind Trip was strewn with guards, pinned there by their own grav plating like wriggling butterflies.

In an adrenaline-fueled calm, Trip stepped into the research bay, sealing the door behind him.

* * *

Deloa, at first, tried to find little ways to pass the time.

Counting backwards from a hundred seemed to do the trick, if only for a few moments, but by then, nothing would have. She was too numb to really think. The only things on her mind was how the snow seemed to bite into her skin like a thousand shards of glass, how her skin blistered with cold, how it burned.

She closed her eyes. The sun was too bright. She'd just have to lie low. It was all she could do for now.

In the distance, she heard the crunching of footsteps in the ice-crusted snow. She managed to pry her eyes open.

Framed in the light of the unblinkingly bright sun was the figure of a man. Del would have thought something of this, but she was just too tired.

As he stepped closer, the glare started to fade, and her eyes could start make out details of the man's appearance. Laboriously, she propped herself up so she was sitting with her back against the wall and her knees against her chest.

Wordlessly, he perched right next to her.

"I was wondering when you'd show up."

"Were you?", asked Trip, staring off into the snowy void.

Del managed a nod. "Let's be real, you were bound to find your way into my dreams."

He raised an eyebrow. "Some dream."

Del picked at the snow beside her. "I'll say. You'd think I could give myself a blanket, at least."

"Well," he said, "I don't have a blanket. But, if you'd be obliged, I could keep you warm."

She looked over at him. "I'd like that."

He uncrossed his arms, holding them as an open invitation. Normally, Del would have seen this as being at least a bit undignified, but exhaustion was quickly dragging her down into his arms.

Her eyelids began to slide shut. But at least she felt warm.

Close by, she heard a voice whispering, "Stay with me, Del... Stay with me..."


	20. Breathe With Me

"Stay with me, Del... Stay with me..."

Trip sat slumped on the floor of the research bay, cradling as much of Del as he could in his arms.

He looked up at the heavy door, which he had set to barricade them in with the strongest security codes he could recall to use. It was the only port of entry to the room, beside the airlock on the opposite side, which he had learned was for emergency experiment disposal.

Things did not look promising at this point. Even as an optimist, he had to admit that.

As a result of trying to compensate for most likely being out of range, he'd cast about and modified his communicator to boost the signal. He had no idea if Enterprise had gotten the message, since his communicator had overloaded shortly after he'd begun transmitting.

He looked down at the lanky figure leaned against him. Even Deloa didn't look too good. He'd gotten that mask off of her, but whatever they'd had her breathing in had done its job. She was mumbling incoherently, shivering in spasms every few seconds.

He cast his eyes up to the ceiling. All throughout his life, he had been pummeled with reminders to never give up. But no one had said anything about what to do if there was simply nothing he could do from here.

Despite himself, an ironic half-smile bloomed on his face. That's right. A wise young woman had once told him, "If there's something you can do, do it."

The faded adrenaline and hysteria started to get to him, and, strangely enough, he began to laugh. Cathartic peals shook his ribcage and scrubbed his throat clean.

"I fail to see," came a low, groggy voice, "what the hell is so funny."

Before his mind could come up with anything to say, his mind came up with a simpler solution. Quick as lightning, he pulled her up against his chest into an embrace.

"That doesn't answer my question," she muttered in his ear.

"Strictly speakin', that wasn't a question," he said, trying to stop his voice from breaking. Despite how little he'd like to admit it, he was getting a little misty-eyed.

"Trip?", she said, trying to get his attention. It didn't work. "Trip!", she said, more forcefully.

"What?" His gaze snapped around to the heavy door.

To both their horror, Danaam was outside, working furiously at the console.

"Now, don't panic," he said unconvincingly, panic rising in his chest. "I locked him out."

"How long do you think that's going to last?", she said, clearly rhetorically.

He straightened up, jogging to the other side of the room to read the console. And then it dawned on him. "He's not trying to open the door," he realized, horrified. "He's trying to open the airlock."

They only had the chance to lock panicked gazes before the air was sucked out of the room.

Trip was violently jerked out into the vacuum, not even having time to take a deep breath. Deloa, on the other hand, clung to the wall. Her heart pounded into her throat.

 _Breathe_ , she told herself amid the chaos. _Breathe, while you still can._

With a deep breath, she steeled herself, and clambered hand-over-hand to the airlock. She wedged her foot between several pipes, and let herself hang out of the ship.

She strained and stretched towards Trip, who drifted, insensate, outside. Her joints popped soundlessly in the vacuum, and her muscles sang with pain.

Finally, she caught ahold of his hand. Straining, she pulled him back in, towards the last source of air left.

Fumbling with the controls, she pressed the sedative mask over his nose and mouth. He would be unconscious, but at least he would be breathing.

As for her, as her lungs screamed their last, longing for a single molecule of oxygen, she turned to face the vacuum of space. _I didn't know_ , she thought, _that it was so much more beautiful up close._

The radiation was starting to hurt quite a lot, but she managed a smile, even as bright white globules of light consumed her vision.


	21. Waltz of Words

Deloa awoke with a gasp.

The first thing out of her mouth was, "I'm not dead!"

Dr. Phlox lay a hand on her sternum to ease her back down. "It seems you aren't. Although you and commander Tucker are a little worse for wear, hm?"

Del's eyes were still wide and panicked. "Trip! Is he alright?"

The doctor patted her on the shoulder. "Oh, he's perfectly fine. Awake, even. Although he is a bit... put off."

Del looked across the sickbay to see Trip, sitting on a bed with his knees against his chest. He met her gaze for a moment, then looked away. Somehow, that one look managed to convey an immense relief, but also coldness, bitterness.

The smile faded from the doctor's face. "I'll, er, leave you two alone, hm?", he said, sidling out of the main doors.

"So," began commander Tucker.

"So," agreed Deloa.

The space between their beds in the semi-darkness of sickbay felt like a divide as big as space itself.

"You've got a lot of explainin' to do," he elaborated.

"So I do," she agreed.

He angled his face towards her, big grey eyes catching all the light. 'Ain't you gonna say somethin'?"

She faced away from him. "I wasn't going to, actually."

An edge of anger crept into his voice. "Del. This ain't small potatoes anymore."

"Really. I thought we were dealing with the smallest of tubers."

"Del," he said warningly.

She sighed. "Trip. I'm sorry. I know this isn't the time for jokes..." She gave him a confused look. "What the hell does that even mean, small potatoes?"

He buried his head in his hands. "It means this is a big deal now."

She pursed her thin lips. "Oh."

He looked at her, earnestly. She saw disappointment, sympathy, and a touch of anger in his face. "Three crewmen were injured in the raid on Danaam's ship. You nearly died. Hell, I nearly died."

A jolt of queasy guilt knotted the pit of her stomach. "I know," she murmured.

"Del, why didn't you tell us about them?" Frustration mounted in his voice. "Who were those people?"

When she didn't respond, he sighed, looking at the wall. "I know you don't like to talk, 'specially about this, but this ain't just about you and me anymore."

Del tried to swallow the swelling lump in her throat. "I was... I was being an idiot."

Trip had to strain to hear her. "I-I thought, somehow, that if I just avoided my past, it'd never come back to bite me in the ass. I suppose," she said, voice laden with bitter irony, "subconsciously, I was trying to protect you."

Trip didn't say anything.

"They're horrible people, Trip! I should know. No," she affirmed, "that place is poison."

"Who were they?" His voice was low and soft, a little ragged around the edges.

"They made me." She snorted. "Danaam would always love to remind me of that. Stroke his own ego a little more."

"What d'you mean, they made you?", he asked. "Like, literally?"

She nodded. "As literally as it can get. Most Kei'Enyar aren't chameleons, you know."

"I'd figured that much," he said, bitterness starting to dry up.

"They took me when I was little. And they... changed me. You know, in a lab. They had dozens like me, other setups with just one variable changed. Some worked out, others..." She closed her eyes, memories flashing behind her eyelids. "Not so much."

She looked directly at Trip, probably for the first time since he had woken up that night. "You know when you asked me if I had a name?"

"You told me you didn't," he said, casting his mind back to that day. It seemed a long time ago.

"Yes, well, I lied. In a way."

"And how's that?", he asked.

"I was prototype number four." She shrugged matter-of-factly. "So they called me Four."

Trip pursed his lips. "I don't know, Deloa has a nice ring to it," he said in a comforting, joking kind of way.

Del smiled. "Exactly." Her smile vanished as she continued her recollections. "But those first twenty-odd years of my life were the worst ones, trust me."

Trip saw the look in her wide, lake-blue eyes, and felt a twist of pity. "You have no idea how it is to have your personhood stripped away like that," she finished softly. Her sarcastic bravado had slipped farther than ever. He could see that.

"I'm so sorry," he offered. "I mean, I know that ain't what you wanna hear, but it's what I've got to say."

She waved dismissively at him. "It's alright. For once in my life, I think I could use a little pity."

She picked at the edge of her medical gown, a habit. "Anyway, I got out of there."

"Guess that's good for you," he floundered.

She nodded. "It wasn't easy. Me and Sixteen planned it for years." She traced patterns in the air. "Manipulating the guards was the easiest part."

"Guess it's lucky that no one asks about the average," he volunteered, remembering one of their earlier conversations.

She smiled. "We had a lot of luck that day. Of course," she chuckled, "we were two dead-broke kids in hospital gowns out in the freezing snow, but at least we were free."

"So what happened?", Trip asked. "How'd you end up... here?"

Del continued to pick at her gown. "It was ten years of wonderful hell for me and Sixteen. Ten years in and out of the cold, begging, borrowing, and stealing. You know," she asserted, looking up at the ceiling, "Chameleons, or Voshte, like me are a big part of Enyar's mythology. But not in a good way." She looked directly at him. "It was like someone with Devil horns trying to find room and board on Earth in the twentieth century. While being pursued by a psychopathic scientist."

Trip was at a bit of a loss.

"It's alright," said Del. "For once, you don't have to say anything." She continued picking at her gown. "Sixteen didn't have to deal with it for as long, may those unforgiving Kari rest his soul."

"What happened?", asked Trip quietly.

"He was made with a different formula than me," she said, her lips tight. "Without treatments from the lab, after a long time... he just stopped functioning. Biologically, I mean. A few years passed, and I grew restless. I blended in with the crowd on a transport up to the orbital platform, and, well," She spread her arms, letting them fall at her sides. "Here I am."

She turned to face Trip. "So there we have it. Story of my life."


	22. Reputation

A low gurgle broke the silence.

Trip raised an eyebrow. "Well, I don't suppose I need to ask if you're hungry."

"If you did, the answer would be a resounding 'yes'. From my stomach," quipped Del.

He chuckled. "Got anything in mind?"

She thought for a moment, then came up with, "Something exotic. Could be anything, really, as long as it's from Earth, and you're not too familiar with it."

Trip got up, his gown crinkling. He tried his best to smooth it down. "It's the twenty-second century," he muttered, "and doctors still gotta put you in a paper dress."

Del made a shooing motion. "Yes, whatever, you look lovely."

He looked back at her from the entryway, amused. "Y'know, you could do with a little patience."

"Patients are for doctors," she joked. "Now go, before I change my mind and go with you."

"That a threat?", he asked.

"Yes. Shoo."

Trip shook his head, laughing, as he walked out of sickbay. The lightness didn't last long, though. He could feel the stares of passing crewmen.

"I'm gonna earn myself a real reputation around here," he muttered.

The doors of the mess hall slid open, revealing a mercifully uncrowded room. The doctor was there, as, apparently, he had taken "Kindly leave us alone," to mean "Take the day off."

Ensign Mayweather was also there, reviewing some padds while eating in the corner. He stood up as soon as he saw Trip. "Commander!", he greeted, his eyes wide. "How's the recovery?"

Trip shrugged. "Goin' fine. How's life been treatin' you, ensign?"

"I've been fine," continued Travis, "But I'd like to hear about how you've been. I mean, no offense, but I thought you were a goner when you got sucked out into space."

"Bit of a strange place to say 'no offense', ensign," he said. "I guess that's Del's way of thinkin' rubbin' off on me, though."

"Del. Is that the Kei'Enyar girl?", asked the helmsman. Trip nodded. Travis patted him on the back. "Good luck."

The engineer looked at him strangely. "What d'you mean by that?" "Unless... I'm wrong about you two," he volunteered uneasily.

"Hod d'you mean, ensign?", Trip asked, even though he knew ninety-nine percent for sure what the helmsman meant.

"Oh, nothing. It's just that, no offense, and I really do mean that, you have a bit of a... reputation. With, uh, alien women. And, well, ever since the senior staff got briefed on her... situation, I've noticed that you've been spending an awful lot of time in sickbay."

Trip regarded him out of the corner of his eye. "Enjoy your lunch, ensign."

He pushed past a cluster of empty chairs to the serving case, and found it full of neat plates of sushi. He shook his head. "Well, I'll be damned." He never cared much for it, but if Del wanted a wide variety of Earth dishes, he'd gladly deliver.

He picked one tray up for Del, and a plate of Pad Thai for himself. Growing up in the American South, Thai food had been for him one of those things that you liked, but you really weren't going to ask for, because nobody else around you really liked it.

On his way out, the doctor gave him a _look_. He thought it over on his way back to sickbay, because he really couldn't tell what it meant.


	23. Confrontation

Deloa was a little lost where sushi was concerned. She poked at a piece cautiously with one of her long nails.

"So let me get this straight," she began.

"Fire away," invited Trip, spreading his arms, then letting them fall.

"Most dishes on your planet have cooked meat. Except this one, because why, exactly?"

He shrugged, a little entertained. "I dunno. That's just the way it is."

"Well, that's a stupid answer."

"Maybe."

She poked at the greenish lump of wasabi and thin slivers of ginger. "And what are these?"

"I wouldn't..." He trailed off. Too late. She had already taken a sizable scoop of wasabi on one of her nails and put it in her mouth.

She pulled a face. "It's so bitter!"

He raised an eyebrow. "It's not... spicy?"

She shrugged. "Well, a little, yeah."

"A little?", he repeated, incredulous. "Back on Earth, that would've been enough to make a grown man cry."

She ignored this, and popped a slice of ginger into her mouth. Her expression turned more neutral. "Well, that's better. Tastes like soap, though."

He poked at his own lunch with a fork. "Y'know, I'm not even sure what that's for."

He held out a pair of chopsticks to her, wrapped in crisp white paper. "You want some chopsticks?"

She took the packet, and raised an eyebrow. "What are they?" He tore the end off of the packet for her. "You use 'em to pick up the sushi."

She slid them out of the paper and broke them sharply apart. "Hmm." She held one like a pencil, and stabbed it like a skewer through one of the pieces of sushi, and popped it in her mouth, chewing pensively. "This is pretty good," she said around the mouthful.

He dropped his head, laughing. "Y'know," he said once he'd recovered, "I would show you how to actually use those, but I never learned how to myself."

"Well, that all sounds pretty unnecessary," she said, setting the offending utensils down.

"Couldn't have said it better myself," he agreed, taking another bite of his own food. She picked up a fork, and, mock-surreptitiously, leaned over the table and plucked a bit from his plate.

He chuckled. "What are you doin'?" She popped it into her mouth, and shrugged, as if the fact she wouldn't talk with her mouth full proved her innocent.

"Well, you know," he said, stretching across the table, "two can play at that game."

They looked at each other in mock-seriousness for a moment, mouths full off each other's intended lunch, then broke off into muffled laughter.

"You know," said Trip "for a girl who acts so serious sometimes, you're a real goofball."

Del shot him a look. "Oh, really, I'm the goofball here? And besides, when am I so serious?"

He shrugged. "I don't know, yesterday?"

She rolled her eyes. "Yesterday we were about to die. Besides, I didn't see you being all sunshine-and-rainbows."

Now it was his turn to roll his eyes. "Yeah, I was too busy savin' your sorry ass."

"Right before I saved _your_ sorry ass," she said, punctuating the word "your" with a jab of her fork.

"So we're even," he said, clearing the table.

Del frowned. "So that first time you saved my life, did that just not happen?"

"Well," he waffled, "I was just doin' my job."

"I don't think that was, not just doing your job, per se. And even if it was, you know, a matter of duty, you didn't have to go beyond that. Do all this." She gestured around the sickbay. "You didn't have to stay there with me, talk to me, tell me stories. You know. Care about me. You didn't have to do any more than help Phlox wrangle me that first night. Hell, it could be argued that you didn't even have to do that."

Del stood up, looking Trip in the eyes as best she could, considering she was six-odd inches taller than him. "You're just so goddamn compassionate. And I don't know why you stayed with me, but that's why I stayed with you."

She shrugged, the signature smile of dawning self-consciousness spreading across her face. "Well, that, and I didn't really have anywhere else to stay." Her heart was firmly lodged in her throat. His was beating a million miles a minute.

"We know that ain't the real reason," he said by way of response. Well, at first, it might've been, but..." He looked down at his boots, which seemed particularly interesting right about then. "And I might've stayed by you at first outta politeness..." He trailed off. Again.

"But none of that's been true for a while now, has it?", finished Del.

And, her uncertainty giving way to an unthinking confidence, of sorts, she leaned down and pressed a kiss to his lips.

It was short-lived, just a mutual experiment, but it still made them both stop.

"Why'd you do that?", he asked.

"I have a better question," said Del. "Do you really have to ask that?"

He drew himself up, and kissed her back, more deeply this time. "No," he said when they pulled apart, "Guess I don't."


	24. Falling Over Each Other

"Finally!", crowed Trip as him and Del half-walked, half-stumbled into his quarters.

"Amen to that!", she beamed, reusing one of his turns of phrase.

He groaned, making a beeline for the storage bins under the bunks. "I don't know how you could stand these paper gowns. Can't speak for you, but they're gettin' awful drafty."

"Now you know my pain," she joked, casting a cheeky smile at him.

"And those beds!", he continued, harping on the quality of life in sickbay. "Did they stuff those things with rocks?"

"No, they're just repurposed spare bulkheads," said Del caustically. She took some athletic-type shorts and a tank top from the bin, went into the bathroom for a moment, slipped them on, and came back out.

"Computer, time?", Trip asked.

"The time is 23:15 hours," remarked the computer, unbothered.

He was taken aback at how late it was. "Well. Better get some shut-eye, I guess."

Del brandished a little metal canister. "Not before you put on some of Phlox's patented scar-away goop, you're not."

He pursed his lips. "That necessary?"

She opened the tin, slathering her hands in bluish slime. "You got radiation burns on portions of your body yesterday. Unless you want them to scar, then yes, this is necessary."

He eyed her hands, long-fingered and dripping with goo. "I can do it myself."

A slight, nervous smile crept onto her elongated features. "You're such a prude."

"All I'm tryin' to do is take things slow."

She looked back at him, diplomatically. "Fine. I can respect that. But my hands are still covered in Sereline."

He bit his lip, then finally settled on a decision. He started undoing the zipper on his jumpsuit, then peeled it off. "Not sayin' we can't, y'know, fool around, but I don't want you to take it too far."

He craned his neck to look over at Del. She nodded. "Trust me. I'll be just as careful as you want."

He started fumbling with the buttons on his shirt. She scraped her fingers off on the edge of the gel canister, and padded over to him. "Let me help."

He pushed her arm away. "Del, I don't need help gettin' my shirt off."

"Still," she insisted. Her long fingers managed to pull the tight blue tank top off with a single hand. Leaning into him, she stole a chaste kiss on the lips. She pulled away for a little, only to get the gel.

He hissed a little at the shock of her cold, slimy fingers on his back. "Relax," she said, a hint of a laugh in her voice.

He did try his best to let his guard down, and Del saw his shoulders slump a little. She guided her hands over the powerful contours of his back, especially his shoulders, given her towering stature. She ran her hands around his chest, embracing him from behind. He craned his head around enough to manage an awkward kiss. The dim light played off the high planes of his face, his clean-cut jaw, his pert nose, his deep-slit Cupid's bow.

Del felt her hand, much of its own accord, trace over the slump of his stomach, the jutting hip bones, down past his waist. There it lay by his side, tracing circles on his thigh.

He pulled away for air, breath shuddering. "D-Del," Trip murmured close to her ear. "If this is goin' where I think it is, then I need you to stop."

She tried to put a casual front on her disappointment, tried to slow down her pattering heart. "It's alright." She sat down hard on the sofa. "Is there... someone else?" H

e looked at her, eyes catching all the light. "Used to be. How'd you know?"

She smiled ruefully. "Just a lucky guess."

He sat cross-legged on the floor, opposite her. "Some lucky guess."

She locked eyes with him for a moment, then caved. "Fine. It was Sixteen."

"Wait, were you two..."

She shook her head. "We weren't. It's just that... after he died, his boyfriend, Sanjel, would just tell me everything." She looked back up at Trip. "Just some fuel for lucky guesses. I don't suppose you want to tell me about her?"

He shook his head, mournfully.

She bent her long legs down to join him on the floor. "Sorry I killed the mood."

"Nah. It was my fault. Wasn't really in the mood to begin with." S

he rested her head on his shoulder, listening to his pulse for a few moments. "I'm cold," she said, finally.

"Well, I don't think I have any extra blankets, but there are other ways of keepin' warm," he said, brightening a little.

She smiled down at him. "I thought you'd never mention it." She helped him up.

"The bunks are a real tight squeeze," he warned.

She shrugged. "I don't care if you don't."

Suddenly, he enveloped her in a warm, gentle kiss. "I don't believe I _do_ care." They stumbled over each other, into the slit-in-the wall bunk.

To conserve space, Del curled up, a mess of lanky limbs. Trip stretched his arm over her, twining his solid fingers with her long, spindly ones.

Her eyes settled closed, lost in his pleasant warmth.


	25. Downward Spiral

Danaam was awake, and hair-trigger alert.

He hunched in the corner of his cell, fingers fumbling with the wiring from the panel he'd pried up. Any moment now, his senses told him. Any moment now and the guard will notice.

And notice he did.

"Hey!", shouted the stolid, beef-witted man at the control panel. "What do you think you're doing back there?"

Danaam didn't answer. The dead didn't need answers.

A sharp headache pierced into his temple at the squeal of the barrier integrity field overloading, shattering the super-reinforced glass like so much crushed ice.

He took a minute for the smoke to clear. The brig was in disarray, charred panels laying broken on the floor.

He stepped over the wreckage, paying no attention to the burnt corpse beneath his boots. It was better that way.

* * *

Del came awake, her bones singing with pain. She nudged at Trip.

His eyes fluttered open. "Mm. Mornin', Del."

"Good morning yourself. My neck is killing me."

Chuckling, he got out of bed. "Y'know, if you wanted me to get out of your way, you could've just asked."

She pushed past him, stretching luxuriously, like a cat. "Complaining does the trick. Besides, it's much more fun."

He smiled, and drew her in for a kiss. She pulled away and wiped her mouth. "Ugh. Morning breath."

She stretched again while he watched and chortled slightly, her joints popping.

* * *

Danaam was coming through the hallways.

So far, this had gone easier than he thought. The gamma-shift armory ensign had fallen like a domino, slumped out on the floor with her black hair spread like a halo. He twitched, gripping the stolen phase pistol tightly.

It had been beautiful.

* * *

Trip ran his hand though his wet hair, trying to get it to lay just so.

He looked back into the room, where Del was putting on her borrowed boots. They fit her gawky feet just right so that they could share.

He sat down on the floor with her. "So, I'm thinkin' that maybe you'd wanna go down to the mess hall for breakfast with me. Y'know, maybe get introduced to coffee."

She got up, smiling. "Well, what with how much you've been singing its praises, I suppose I'll have to."

"Attagirl," he said, lacing up his boots. He stood up, grabbing onto her hand for support.

* * *

Danaam checked the map on his stolen scanner. There he was, the blinking little blue dot, and there she was, the sure, steady little point of light.

It made them look like they were together already. So close.

* * *

Del and Trip stood before the doorway to their quarters, their home, chatting away. With the push of a button, the door slid open.

And then it all fell apart, slowly, then all at once.

Danaam was standing there, in the hallway, phase pistol gripped in his hand.

Deloa's expression was confusion, fear, anger, sadness, all at once.

Trip's hand went to the comm-panel on the wall, his wide grey eyes full of fear.

Danaam's quivering hands found the steel to squeeze the trigger.

There was nothing anyone could do as the bolt of energy found its home near her heart. She collapsed to the ground.

Then things began to happen all at once.

Trip pressed the comm-panel button, barking out, "Tucker to sickbay! I'm outside my quarters, send a medical team!"

He didn't wait for a response before rushing after Danaam. The man was trying to flee, though he knew it wouldn't matter. He had resigned himself to his fate long ago.

Trip, his eyes steel, dealt him a swift right hook. He crumpled to the ground.

Hands shaking with adrenaline and nerves, the commander leveled the phase pistol at him, switching it to stun.

"Pathetic," whispered Danaam, smiling. "I make her in the image of the Voshte, noble like myself, and she chooses a coward like you."

Trip squeezed the trigger, making his tormenter fall silent.

"You're missin' the point", he breathed. "I'm not like you."

* * *

The light flickered in and out of Del's vision, like a flashlight with a dying battery. Trip could see that from where he was, running alongside the gurney through the halls.

His stomach was churning with hollow dread. He could see her, her gaze dangerously unfocused, her head lolling to the side.

Dr. Phlox was there, also, his mind dimly registered. He was giving out orders to the nurse with uncharacteristic sharpness.

They made it to sickbay, after what seemed like an eternity of gray wall paneling and dim lights. The white of that room seemed jarringly clean, against the burnt black-and-blue seeping out from under Deloa's hand.

He and the others transferred her onto the bio-bed, gently but with panicked urgency. The doctor came up to him, and put a hand on his shoulder. "Commander, I recommend you wait outside."

"The hell I will!", he shot back.

The Denobulan's grip became a little firmer. "At this point, my nurses and I will handle the situation. All things considered, I understand why you would want to stay, but it would be better for all parties involved if you would stay out of my sickbay."

Trip closed his eyes, sighed bitterly. "Fine."


	26. Aftershock

Dr. Phlox parted the white curtain strung up around the bulk of sickbay, outfitted in grey surgical scrubs.

Trip stood up from his position, which was with his back against the sickbay doors. "Anythin', Doc?" The Denobulan bowed his head, for once in his life lost for words. A sob threatened to claw its way out of Trip's throat. Blinking back tears, he tore past the curtain and into the main sickbay.

Deloa was lying on a bed in the middle, a crisp white blanket pulled up to her collarbones. A pump circulated deep blue blood in and out of her, and she was quite awake.

He made his way over to her.

"Hey, you," she said, weaker than even her usual low voice.

"Hey, yourself," he said, picking up one of her hands, and threading her cold, spidery fingers with his own. "Del," he began, not knowing quite what to say. "What's goin' on? I-I'm sorry, I mean..."

He trailed off as she put a finger over his lips. "It's my turn to talk." She gulped, her thin Adam's-apple bobbing.

"First of all," she began, "I'm on life support. Second of all, it's not going to be like that forever." Trip stayed quiet, choking on a growing, painful lump in his throat.

"Third. You," she said, glancing pointedly at him, "are going to get through this."

"Me?", he managed. "Just me? Del, you're gonna be alright."

She shook her head weakly. "Trip. I have a hole in my chest." She smiled sadly at him. "I'm going to die."

He opened his mouth to contradict her, but she cut him off. "I don't need comfort or platitudes. I need for you to listen to me. Now, I can already hear you blaming yourself. In your mind. I know you. Here's my advice: don't. Danaam aimed at me, and fully intended to shoot me. None of that has anything to do with you."

She took a ragged breath.

"And finally." She gripped his hand harder and brought it close to her chest.

"You, Charles Tucker the Third, are the kindest, smartest, most understanding, most beautiful man I have ever met."

A mournful smile, laced with hysteria, forced its way onto his face.

She reached up to wipe away a salt tear that came down from his eye. "Are you crying? You're such a sap," Del remarked, laughing a shaky, shuddering laugh.

He started laughing the same laugh, wiping away the tears that came down in rivulets.

"Tell me a story," she said, her eyes shining pale blue.

"What?", he asked, somewhat incredulous.

"In a moment, the doctor's going to cut off life support. Don't worry. I told him to. Now, I want you to tell-"

Deloa burst into a fit of coughing. "Tell me a story," she repeated, as soon as it subsided.

Choking back tears, Trip retrieved a padd from his pocket. With shaking voice, he began to read.

"Song of the Hidden Heart: Chapter the Fortieth and Final.

And so it came to be that Deloa, changer of faces and friend of the Aenar, found her peace. Long she had wandered the mountains of ice, stumbling blindly. But after she had found her true face in the pool of souls, she found her true way.

The light pointed her to a land yet undiscovered, the land of warm sun and emerald grass. And from then on-"

A loud, flat alarm tone sounded. Trip stood bolt upright, gripping Del's hand like a vise.

"Don't cry," she murmured. "It makes your face all red. It's not... not pretty."

"Can't help it," he said, wiping away tears.

"Mm. Doesn't matter," she said distantly, closing her eyes. "You're always pretty."

And then all the alarms in sickbay, like a dissonant symphony, began to wail.

Trip let his head fall, a sob ripping from his throat.

The doctor came over, muttering condolences. Trip batted him away.

Then he met Deloa's still-warm lips, one last time, her lanky limbs spilling out from his embrace. He didn't know what else to do.

He just hoped that, wherever she was, she felt that.

* * *

...

...

Trip splashed water over his face, hoping the cold would take away some of the redness from his face. He looked in the mirror. Still red.

He heard the door chime. "Come in," he said, patting his face dry with a towel.

The door slid open, and there stood captain Archer, silhouetted by outside light in his doorway.

"Captain," he greeted, coming to meet his commanding officer in the main corridor.

"I, uh, came to tell you that we've entered orbit of Enyar," said Archer, his eyes shifting everywhere besides meeting Trip's gaze. "Turns out, this Danaam is a criminal there. He's wanted for resisting attest, stealing government property, and multiple counts of illegal experimentation."

He toyed with the padd in his left hand. "The information in your reports sync up with that."

Archer set it on the small desk in the cabin. "I've got a duty roster for you. Nothing like a little work to take your mind off things."

The commander accepted the data module. "Guess you're right."

Archer struggled with his words for a moment. "Trip, I'm... I'm sorry. I know it's never easy to lose someone."

Trip scoffed, a kind of bittersweet humor coming into his face. "Y'know, Del would've gotten a real kick out of that," he said. "You, comin' in here, tellin' me you're sorry."

His point of focus seemed to shift somewhere outside the room, somewhere in his mind. "You know what she told me once? She said, 'Stop saying sorry. Not only does it not fix things, it gets really, really annoying.'"

Captain Archer looked down at his boots, then back up again. "From what we saw... she seemed like a fine woman."

Trip felt the burning at the back of his eyes again. A smile touched the corners of his mouth.

"Sure was."


End file.
